


The Great War Against Black Hat, Inc.

by AmygDalin



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Dark Humor, F/M, Gore, Humor, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Multi, Polyamory, Tags to be added, detailed deaths, im sorry yall lol, slow deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2018-12-02 17:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmygDalin/pseuds/AmygDalin
Summary: When you have as successful a business as Black Hat, you're bound to make enemies, and battles are imminent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey lads im back w more villainous! hopefully ill be able to finish this all the way through! im super excited to be writing this, and it's been a blast writing so far. jsyk, there WILL be a couple recurring ocs, and unfortunately no smut :'( i genuinely love the idea of bh/dem/flug tho (demented paperhat? is that it?) and it's weird that i haven't seen more of it yet. this will be written so it can be read as platonic or romantic, but im leaning more towards romantic bc that's just how i am lol.  
> i don't own any characters other than my upcoming ocs. enjoy!!

Imagine this, if you will.

A grand, hat-shaped mansion, resting atop of a small hill, settled in a sweet little suburban neighborhood, surrounded by a metal fence (complete with a gate decorated with two large letters, B and H). A dark aura seemed to encapsulate the entire plot of land, and the weird part was that the aura only affected that small section of the neighborhood, that tiny section of a bare yard and dead, yellowed grass.

Anytime dogs passed by the house, they either barked uncontrollably until they were well away from (read: dragged their owner past) the mansion and was safely on the other side of the street, or they began to foam at the mouth and fell over, quite dead, right there on the sidewalk, either from extreme heart palpitations or from a sudden, very rare, very advanced case of rabies. None of the animals dared to near the plot of lands, not even the pigeons.

Only black cats had the nerve to saunter up to the metal fence. The odd part was that they had the sense to never breach the fence to get to the other side. Now, black cats were considered bad luck for no such reason other than they were bad omens. The neighborhood always managed to keep black cats away by beating them off with brooms or even going as far as to load whatever rebel black cat had slinked in into their cars and drive them far, far away from their cozy little blocks of houses.

It was a very superstitious neighborhood.

So you can't even begin to comprehend how afraid a few families were when a mansion in the shape of a black hat popped up out of nowhere. Several other families became scared as more and more reports of rabid and dead dogs were given, seemingly due to that weird mansion's aura.

But the _minute_ people started sighting black cats being bold enough to rub against the fence surrounding the mansion (without any sign of, say, a minor case of rabies or inexplicable, instantaneous death), everyone in the neighborhood was fearing for their lives. Who'd have thought that cats would be the push to get the neighborhood to stock up on rifles and emergency phones? Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Anyways, everyone in the neighborhood was apprehensive for the future; a future that would center around that god forsaken hat house and its high dog death and black cat count.

Well. 

_Nearly_ everyone.

Who'd have thought that the only people-- _individuals_ , really, because they weren't really people--in the neighborhood that weren't frightful of the incoming events were the ones living in that house?

That was a lie.

They were going to be scared, and the fear of the unknown would be coming for them, too.

The Great War against Black Hat, Inc., its employees, and their employer came to a head after weeks of sabotage, threats, and planning.

It left the neighborhood and the city near it in ruins.

How thoughtful.  
~*~  
" _Flug_!"

Flug shot up in his chair, knocked his head against the wall, saw stars, rubbed his head, glared at said wall, then pressed the button on his handset to respond. "Yeah, boss?"

"Come to my office. _Now_." The voice at the other end hesitated before continuing, almost hesitantly, "We have...a dilemma we need to discuss."

Flug sighed under his breath and said, "Yessir," before taking his finger off the button. He reached up underneath his bag to pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes squinting shut. So much for a nap. 

Also, he really should move his desk from where it was. His chair was pressed up right against the wall, and he'd hit his head on the wall many a time. 

Nevertheless, Flug extracted himself from his chair carefully and started moving sluggishly in the direction of Black Hat's office. He'd only been in there twice before, once to discuss his work ethics ("I don't care _how_ well you can concentrate with five cups of coffee and an energy drink, that much caffeine would kill a horse in five minutes." "S-sir, I'm not sure that analogy works--" "Bull _shit_ it doesn't work. Now go finish that ray gun.") and another time to ask if it was morally repugnant or not to go set an orphanage on fire (Flug said it absolutely was, so Black Hat went and set an orphanage on fire for no reason other than the fact that it was indeed considered morally repugnant). He wondered if Black Hat had found out that Flug had decided to switch to two energy drinks a day. Probably. He was probably going to get his ass chewed.

Oh well. Third time's the charm, he supposed.

He hadn't so much as set a foot out of the doorway of his lab when Demencia yelled, "Aw sweet, you're _alive_!" and fell on him from the ceiling. No, really. She _fell_ on him. 

While Flug struggled under her and tried to squirm out, Demencia grinned down at him, perched on his chest. "I haven't seen you for days, Flug! I was starting to miss you!" She cooed. He wheezed.

"Dem...can't breathe..."

She blinked down at him, gears turning in her head, before she drew her brows together. "Right. You can't breathe when I'm on top of you." Demencia rolled off of him and laid next to him. Flug rolled his eyes and clambered up, dusting his lab coat off.

"Please don't distract me. Black Hat called me to his office, and--"

"You're going too?" Demencia hopped up and squealed. "5.0.5 was the one who told me--he'll be there too, and that's kinda weird, but we'll all be in the same room for a while, which is neat--and I guess it's kinda important." She clapped her hands together excitedly. "It'll be like a family gathering!"

It wouldn't be anything like a family gathering, Flug already knew that. One was enduring endless torture for hours on end, and the other was sitting in Black Hat's office. 

Flug readjusted his bag and goggles, and he started walking towards the office again. Demencia watched him go and followed him by slithering up a wall, crawling on the ceiling above Flug. 

"Can't you just, just _walk_ normally?" 

"Nnnnnnope!"

The door was open by the time the two reached the office. That in and of itself was strange. Flug walked in, and Demencia crawled in. Demencia dropped next to Flug, and both hesitated at the sight of Black Hat. 

The back of his chair was to them. The room seemed to be bathed in blood from the red and black highlights in the curtains, the carpet, the walls. Even Black Hat's mahogany desk seemed ominous in the little bit of light shining in the room. 5.0.5 was laying on his little bed next to the two chairs situated in front of the desk. The bear lifted his head, made a soft chirping noise in greeting, then laid his head back down.

"Sit." Black Hat didn't move his chair until Flug and Demencia were sat down. He observed the two for a moment--Demencia staring at him in raw adoration, Flug staring at him in apprehension--before making a rumbling noise in the back of his throat. He rubbed at his temples tiredly.

They sat in tense silence. Flug saw out of the corner of his eye Demencia cough into a fist and finally glance away, biting her lip.

"Uh, sir?"

"Yes, Flug."

"Wh-what, um...seems to be the issue? That you had to have all of us in here for?"

Flug was a little afraid that Black Hat would yell at him for that one, but he was surprised by Black Hat giving him a mildly annoyed glare. 

"Well, Flug, if you would just let me explain myself--"

"To be fair, you weren't saying anything," Demencia interrupted. Black Hat sent a withering glare her way, and she shrugged and grinned.

"Anyways. I've received intel from an... _anonymous_ source that apparently we hold too much power over the weapon dealing market." Pride flashed briefly over Black Hat's face before settling back into seriousness. "Unfortunately, that also means that some ragtag group of heroes have teamed up to 'defeat us'," said Black Hat, illustration the quotation marks by bending his fingers. 

"Cool. We'll just go get some help from other villains, and--"

"Demencia." Black Hat narrowed his visible eye in her direction. "Some of the villains have teamed up with the heroes."

She spluttered, uncrossing her arms to grip the armrests of her chair. " _What_? That's _stupid_. They're _stupid_ if they think they're on the winning side."

Flug piped up with, "How can you be sure this is true? I mean...sales haven't dropped, not yet, at least."

Black Hat growled. "I know. And my informant is known to lie to stir drama, which I want _no_ part in, in this case, and besides, where else are villains going to get their weapons? That furniture store down Main Street?"

"Uh, actually sir, I think that the owner was arrested for charges on owning multiple illegal firearms and grade A explosives, so--"

"Bah! Whatever!" Black Hat waved his hand dismissively. "The point is, there's no use in waiting around for this distracting garbage. It's a waste of time and money."

Demencia was pouting on the other side of Flug. "I was looking forward to a fight," she mumbled.

Flug was still confused. "So you brought us in here...to tell us of a potential drama scene, sir?" He asked slowly.

Black Hat scoffed. "Of course not, you idiot." He stood from his chair and strode over to his file cabinet, opening a drawer seemingly at random and flicking through the files in boredom. "I may be powerful, but the villains--even some of the heroes--that I sell my products to are not to be trifled with. Some of them may be indebted to me, but that won't stop them from betraying us."

"So, so what, we just sit and _wait_?" Flug asked incredulously.

Black Hat glanced over and gave him a sinister smile. "Of course not. You all have work to do. Now, off you go. Go on, shoo."

Flug caught Black Hat's shoulders sagging slightly right before he left his office. He would've done a double take had Demencia not pantsed him right then and there.  
~*~  
On the other side of town, far away from the neighborhood Black Hat, Inc. inhabited, laid a small, dingy bar. It wasn't on any map, it had no signs designating its existence, and it certainly wasn't anything flashy-looking on the outside, which made it a perfect hideout/meet up area for villains.

Inside, the general murmur of voices and clinking glass mixed in with the scratchy static of multiple televisions lining the walls (some were old; some were new; and it was most certain that they had all been stolen). It was mostly dim, save for the light from the screens of the TVs and a few dirtied light bulbs, and the tables and counter were all dusty and scratched. It reeked of smoke and horrible body odor. No matter how disgusting it was, though, the bar was a safe haven and a home for many villains looking for relaxation.

Most of the villains--including the two bartenders--were faithful followers of Black Hat. Even if they didn't directly associate themselves with the super villain, they admired his work, and they'd be damned if they found a better businessman and weapons dealer. In fact, the bartenders had the TVs in the bar purely for when Black Hat decided to air another one of his commercials, somehow hacking into every television within the city. Nothing else would ever be shown on the TVs.

The sounds of the bar were suddenly silenced as the static on the TVs cut out. A black screen showed, the insignia of a bird carrying a presumably dead snake in its talons burned in white. One of the bartenders set her towel down, her brows furrowed. That wasn't Black Hat, Inc.

The insignia and black screen remained in place, but a disembodied voice, warbled out unnaturally (likely to protect an identity), "Greetings, villains...and heroes. No citizens will be witnessing the following information, as it will keep them compliant and unaware of the danger the city is currently in.

"It is unlikely that you're not informed of him yet, but Black Hat, a well known, powerful businessman--and villain--runs an illegal weapons dealing business under the alias of Black Hat, Incorporated." The screen cut to a photo of a hat shaped mansion, situated in a cozy neighborhood. Next to the photo was a picture of the villain in question, clutching a board with his name and height emblazoned on it. He wore what one could only describe as a shit-eating grin, the visible eye--the one not hidden behind a monocle--narrowed in a challenging manner. A few of the patrons in the bar barked out some laughs. Only the most ignorant of villains had not a shit idea who Black Hat was. The laughter cut out as the voice continued.

"Black Hat employs three others, and they reside in his manor alongside of him. Doctor Flug Slys, Demencia, and 5.0.5." Photos of a man wearing goggles and a paper bag, a young woman with bright pink and green wild hair and a lizard hoodie, and a blue bear with a flower bobbing around his head were pulled up onto the screen, all holding boards with their names and heights. They all wore differing expressions, so it was obvious that it wasn't their first mugshot. 

"Black Hat doesn't care for his employees. To him, they're dispensable, useless, and are only meant to be kept for entertainment." There was a cough, some shuffling. Black Hat wasn't special in that department obviously. That part must've been added in for the goody two shoes heroes, if they hadn't been persuaded in joining the hunt against Black Hat already. "Now, I know you must be thinking to yourself, 'How is this relevant to me?' I have the answer, so listen up.

"Black Hat will run villains not only in this city out of business but around the world as well." Discontented murmuring filled the bar. "Heroes will only have more and more work to do if Black Hat continues his reign of terror. Black Hat doesn't care about the well being of other villains. He wants your money and your blind faithfulness in him. If you disappoint him, he _will_ find a way to exact revenge upon you, and it won't be pretty or fast.

"If we rid Black Hat of his filthy existence upon this world, villains could depend on themselves again. Heroes would have it a bit easier. Small business villains would thrive again, and heroes could get back to stopping those businesses. But in order for this to happen, we need heroes and villains both to team up."

The bar exploded in rage. Yelling and mugs being thrown at the ground and the pounding of fists on tables chased the silence away. The bartender shouted above the chaos to try and settle things--besides, her bar was getting absolutely trashed, and she couldn't afford more than one cleaning a month--but it was to no avail.

It had been years and years since heroes and villains teamed up. Heroes hated it because it made them look like they were wusses and were unable to get help from other heroes; villains hated it because the heroes were the ones after their skins. Why would either team up with their enemies? It was pointless. Besides, Black Hat was not a force to be reckoned with.

"Now, I know this may upset a few of you--"

"Yeah, no shit!" Shrieked a man sitting at the counter. The bartender reached over, slammed his head into the counter to knock him out (which effectively shut up the rest of the bar), and kept her eyes on the screen. It was devoid of photos, and it was once again lit up with the strange insignia.

"--but it's worth it in the end. I promise. Black Hat has been driving all of us--even the civilians--into debt with his nefarious ways." A few reluctant murmurs in agreement sounded. Some of the villains _had_ gone into a deep debt after they couldn't pay Black Hat back for their weapons that didn't even function properly. "Isn't it worth it to be with your enemies for a short while? Isn't it worth it to take down Black Hat once and for all? Isn't it worth it for the future and well being of everyone in this city, in this world, in this _universe_? If you decide to join us, if you decide to dedicate to the cause...we'll find you. You're guaranteed a share of whatever is left of Black Hat, Incorporated.

"We stop him however we can. Threaten him, kidnap him, torture him, kill him. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Kill his employees--they'll most certainly try to protect him, but they're weak--and then strike. Him. Down." The voice paused, then it continued lowly, "The first meeting to decide on what to do first will be held tomorrow at seven PM sharp. Be there. Oh, and in the meantime, don't purchase anything from Black Hat, Inc." 

The screens shut off. One, two, three seconds of stillness, then someone said, "Oh, Black Hat is _so_ going down. I've always loved a fair fight."

Cheers rang through the bar in agreement.  
Every villain was excitedly discussing their plans for killing Black Hat (all in very detailed and disturbing ways), and every villain was ecstatic for another reason to destroy things, and every villain was in agreement that Black Hat, that bastard, that son of a bitch, that slimy, two-faced demon spawn, needed to die.

Every villain except for one, and she was standing behind the bar, hiding a scowl and failing. She reached underneath the counter, pressed a button, and sighed.

She had information to pass on, and it sure wasn't anything good. 

It was too good to lie about.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully i can aim for an update a week, every saturday. also this chapter introduces a couple of ocs, who will be returning frequently. any mistakes made in the fic are mine! enjoy!!

The numbers didn't add up. They just didn't.

Black Hat lifted his hat, rubbed at the top of his head in agitation, placed it back up his head, and leaned back in his chair, eyes focused upwards. 

His stocks had fallen _six points_ in two weeks. He was balancing dangerously on the brim of bankruptcy, and he hadn't sold a single weapon in that time frame. Yet all of his commercials were still getting as many views as they usually did--he knew this for a fact because he personally hacked all of the televisions in the houses of villains in the city and even some of his hero customers--and had gotten bets on every weapon. None of them ever went through.

In all of his years of villainy, in all of his years of terrorism, striking fear into people's hearts, and conquering worlds, he'd never failed. Failure, to Black Hat, was a foreign concept. He always scoffed at the irrational phobia of failure that humans tended to have. Why should he fear something that would never happen to him, he often wondered. He had better things to be doing than being afraid of an abstract human concept. 

If his slyness and being downright slimy didn't work, then Black Hat would always fall back on his charm and charisma, and vice versa. The perfect balance of smooth talking, a faked smile, and using language that would guilt trip anyone into buying his goods or handing over their belongings or even admitting defeat and surrendering did wonders for him and his company.

Or, at least for the time being (hopefully), it _used_ to.

He scowled. The lights in his office dimmed slightly, reacting to his emotions. Anger, frustration, apprehension...worry. Black Hat threw his pen as hard as he could at the opposite wall. It stuck firmly while he growled, "It makes no damn _sense_."

Then there was a touch of hesitation to his thoughts. What if it really _was_ true that there was a group of heroes--and villains, for that matter; they were slimy, too, even if some of them owed Black Hat--trying to stop him?

It wasn't anything new. In the years that he had been active in villainy, he had had hundreds of heroes and villains attempt to wrest control from him and subdue him, all for moot. And yes, they had even tried to sabotage his company, blow up his house, deliver threats, kill him, etcetera, etcetera. They had attempted to even murder his employees, which was laughable in and of itself. 

It always started with a drop in sales, though, but he could always recover within only a few days.

This time, it was different.

This was a debt he wouldn't be able to recover from for a while.

So maybe this time, he wouldn't be so lucky. Maybe he wouldn't _ever_ recover from it. Maybe he had gone soft, and that made him and his company an easier target.

Maybe, just this once, he had slipped up, and the heroes and villains would get what they had always wanted ever since his company began.

Black Hat stood up and cleared his throat. He needed to do something to free up his mind. Like terrorizing the Loues across the street. Their little Yorkshire terrier always managed to wake him up at six in the morning, every morning, and skewering that little rat on a tentacle in front of its owners sounded heavenly at that moment. He smirked and went to rip open a portal to travel to their yard when the doorbell rang.

He hesitated. It was probably those scouts trying to sell him cookies again. Confound them, he'd already bought ten boxes of the chocolate mint cookies...and had eaten them all. It wasn't good for his villainous image to be seen buying treats from those scouts. He almost dismissed it when the doorbell rang again, followed by a knock.

Unless...

Unless it was a customer? He wasn't about to turn down anyone interested in his goods. Black Hat rubbed at his chin briefly in thought before leaning over and pressing a button on his phone-set. "Demencia! Go answer the door! If they aren't a customer, chase them off!" He ordered. He took his finger off the button and paused. Demencia, from the floor below, hollered out an affirmative answer to let him know that she had heard before the sound of a door opening and closing sounded. Relieved, Black Hat sank back into his chair and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. He idly rubbed at his temples.

He felt a migraine coming on, and he really needed a nap. He _deserved_ a nap after all that paperwork and introspection. Demons weren't exempt from paying taxes in that damned city.  
~*~  
"Flug."

"Yes, sir?"

"Where is Demencia?"

"I...don't know, sir."

"Well, find out." Black Hat sniffed, rustled the newspaper, licked a finger, and turned the page. He saw that the orphanage was still recovering from that devastating fire he had caused, and the authorities, those bumbling idiots, _still_ had no idea it was him. Good.

He heard Flug shuffle out of his chair, muttering under his breath about how he never managed to finish his coffee before it got cold, and went out of the kitchen in search of the wild lizard-woman hybrid. Black Hat picked up his cup of tea and sipped at it. 5.0.5 wandered into the kitchen in search of food, warily eying Black Hat the entire time and making a run for it as soon as Black Hat showed mild interest in bothering the blue bear.

Ten minutes passed. Then, just as Black Hat reached the comics page--the only one that he favored to read was the Garfield panel, as he admired the cat's petty antics--Flug stumbled back in, out of breath and clutching a stitch in his side.

"Sir...you didn't... _tell_ me...that the hellhounds...were out," the scientist wheezed. 

Black Hat folded the newspaper once over, set it down on the table. He gave Flug a once over then calmly said, "Those weren't hellhounds, Flug."

" _What_."

"You heard me." Flug glared at Black Hat bitterly then plopped back down into his chair. As predicted, his coffee was cold. Again. "Did you find her?"

"No," Flug replied shortly, picking up his mug of coffee and staring down at it, almost sadly. God, he was so dramatic when he wanted to be. With a sigh, Black Hat snapped his fingers, and Flug's cup was filled back to the brim with hot coffee. 

"Did you check in my bedroom?" 

"I, uh..." 

"I'll assume that's a no. Good for you, you remembered the rules." He offered Flug a tight smile. "You wouldn't have survived an encounter in my bedroom, anyways."

Flug was taking a sip at his coffee as Black Hat said this, and he choked, coughing on the bitter liquid. "I'm...I'm _sorry_?"

Black Hat tsked and rolled his eyes. "I meant as in you _literally_ wouldn't survive an encounter. One step in the doorway, and you'd be piranha food. Oh, by the way, if you happen to notice any immediate after effects from drinking that coffee, like, oh, a slightly higher blood pressure than normal or death, ignore it."

The scientist looked down at his mug, back up at Black Hat, and slowly set his coffee back on the table. "Thanks for letting me know ahead of time," he muttered. He pushed away from the table and made his way to the coffee maker, and Black Hat snickered.

"Good man, Flug. Good man. Anyhow...if you couldn't find Demencia, it's likely that she snuck out again," he continued, inspecting his gloveless fingers idly. He never wore his gloves with his robe. They clashed terribly. 

"She didn't really have a reason to sneak out this time, though, sir," Flug pointed out. He leaned against the counter next to the jar of hands and eyes, waiting for his coffee to finish brewing. "Although, she never really _needs_ a reason to sneak out."

"Her tracking device would've gone off if her motive _was_ sneaking out," Black Hat added, tapping a finger against his lips. "The only way that she would've been able to get away with getting out of the house would be if I had given her permission to! That's just ridiculous in and of itself, honestly." He stood from the table and adjusted the tie of his robe with a huff. 

Flug's bag crinkled as he reached up under it to scratch at his cheek, grasping the new coffee by the handle on the mug with his other hand. "You didn't send her on errands again, did you?"

"Of course not. I know better than to..." he trailed off, then he blinked. Was checking the door and chasing off visitors considered an errand? Demencia would've returned from chasing off the offenders if they weren't customers; if they had been customers, then they would've been brought up to his office by Demencia. So what had happened?

"...Sir?"

The lights dimmed as Black Hat reached a conclusion, the thoughts that had occurred to him in his office earlier that day contributing, his anger coming upon him like a tide crashing to shore. "She was stolen."

"Wh-"

"She was taken from me by those...those _delinquents_ who dare call themselves heroes...the ones who have sank this company within _days_ \--" One of the light bulbs popped as more and more rage filled Black Hat. Flug shrank back against the counter, pupils pinpoints. The mug of coffee he was holding fell, only to be caught by one of the many tentacles erupting from Black Hat. 

"Sir, I-I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any s--"

"No _wonder_ there haven't been any customers, any sales--"

"Boss?"

The wood floors underneath Black Hat groaned, " _No one touches my property except for me. No. One._ " A hundred different mouths speaking a hundred different languages erupted along Black Hat's body, all babbling and hissing the same thing: _My property, my property, my property_.

A very small, very quiet voice in the back of Black Hat's mind scolded him for calling Demencia his property, like she was some mindless, inanimate object, and Black Hat almost felt bad.

Almost.

But in the end, she was his, Flug was his, 5.0.5 was his, and as long as they were in his employment, they were _his property_ \--

Every single inch of Black Hat froze at the introduction of a new noise, every eye turned in the direction of the front door, then he melted into the shadows, leaving Flug in the kitchen. A million different shards of his being were melded with the shadows on the walls, the floors, the ceilings, all traveling to the source of the noise, the source of the banging. All with the same intent. 

Killing.

The idiots who took Demencia away from him, from Flug, from 5.0.5, had the _gall_ to show up back at the manor, acting as if all was well, as if they weren't about to be torn limb from limb, gutted like a fish, skinned alive. 

He was going to kill them all, and then for good measure, he'd bring them back to life and kill them again.

He'd drive them insane, he'd tear their fingernails and toenails off one by one, he'd pull their veins from their bodies and use them make a noose to hang them with, he'd--

He reformed in front of the door, in his normal form save for a few glaring eyes here and there, and he ripped the door open, teeth bared.

Much to his astonishment, it wasn't a group of heroes.

Demencia wiped at her nose with the back of her hand, looked down at the blood in mild surprise, then glanced up at Black Hat, grinning slightly. "Hey. What's up?"

She was covered in bruises, cuts, and blood (debatable on whether it was her own or not); she was dirtied; her clothes were ripped more than usual; she sported a black eye, a bloody nose, and a missing tooth. She looked almost happy, however, and given that she hadn't shown back up looking like she was, Black Hat wouldn't have suspected a thing.

His eye twitched. The others on his body followed suit. He could hear Flug running to the front door at that point, 5.0.5 close behind, and the sharp hum gave away the ray gun that Flug held in one hand. "What. _Happened_ ," he asked through gritted teeth.

The young woman leant over the side of the porch, spat a bloody wad of spit into the lawn, and looked Black Hat directly in the eye, all traces of a smile gone from her face. "I got kidnapped, and I figured you guys wouldn't be coming to get me, so I killed them all," she said in a flat voice as she crossed her arms over her chest. The weight of what she had just said suddenly hit her, and her eyes flickered away as she rocked on her heels.

Slowly, the extra eyes retracted from Black Hat's form. He narrowed his visible eye at Demencia. "Get inside the house. You have some explaining to do." 

Flug reached around Black Hat to gently take Demencia's hand, tugging her into the house. Black Hat could hear Flug asking her about her injuries in a low voice. 

He waited until the trio was well into the manor before closing the door, but not before scowling in the direction of the house across the road.

That godless dog was yipping again.  
~*~  
The mayor of the city was named Angela Angel. She was a retired hero, now nearing her thirties, who was winged and had a knack for sharpshooting. She loved her city, she loved the citizens. She adored the heroes, but she didn't care much for the villains. Nevertheless, villains were citizens too, and they deserved as much love and respect she could muster for them.

She was adored by the heroes and the people of the city alike. She had had a very successful and long lasting career as a hero. Everyone knew her by her name due to her signature pure white feathered wings, resembling those of a swan. Her long blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes were stunning, and her skin was as pale as snow on a winter morning. She always dressed to impress. To top it all off, she was considered polite, clever, and most of all, compassionate.

To say she stole the public's heart would be doing a disservice to her. 

She won the electoral vote by a landslide (the competitor, some unknown businessman, won less that five percent of the vote), and her office was often overflowing with gifts and cards, thanking her for her service to the city for so many years and hoping for more prosperity in the future.

Angela had been in the middle of reading through a letter written by a six year old fan, smiling all the while, when the door to her office creaked open.

"Um...Miss Angel, you have a visitor." Her secretary, Darla, had the slightest bit of a southern twang to her voice, which was adorable to Angela. She glanced behind her before adding quietly, "Your visitor doesn't seem too happy to be here, either. Sorry, ma'am."

Angela glanced up and gave her secretary a warm smile. "Thank you, Darla. Send them in, please," she cooed.

Darla blushed before ducking out of the room. A minute later, a girl of about fifteen shuffled in, eyes glancing around the room with an alertness that Angela somehow recognized. She donned a jean jacket covered in patches and pins, black leggings, and a black tank under the jacket. Red chucks seemed to be the girl's shoes of choice, as they were well worn and dirty. A floral snapback rested atop straight, shiny black hair. Angela noticed that on her inner left wrist was a dove, likely a tattoo, that was hardly noticeable on her dark skin.

The mayor sat back in her chair, motioning to the chair in front of her desk. "Take a seat, please, miss...?"

"Peregrine." Peregrine sat down in her chair and anxiously tapped her fingers against the seat's armrest. Angela waited patiently for her visitor to say anything else, and her patience rewarded her. "So, Miss Angel, have you gotten any of my letters yet?" Asked Peregrine. Her dark brown eyes searched Angela's face desperately.

"Letters...letters..." Angela tapped a finger against her chin, brows furrowing. Then her face lit up. "Ah! You must be Hanna, right? Hanna Bains?" She bent to shuffle through one of her desk's drawers (the one where she kept her drawings and important letters sent to her by the people of the city) and finally pulled out a bundle of letters, bound together in twine. "I knew who you were as soon as you walked through that door. I worked with your parents back when I was a youngun like you, Hanna. You have that same self-awareness that your mother did, back in the day."

"My first name isn't Peregrine, but I like to, um, go by it more than Hanna." Peregrine shook her head then brought her knees up to her chest. "Anyways, you... _read_ my letters, right?"

Angela nodded. "Of course. You want to put a rehabilitation center for repenting villains in the city," she said. At that, Peregrine nodded.

"Yeah. Cuz, I mean, they're people too. Villains. And if they wanna start over, why not let them?" 

"Hm. And where would you put your rehabilitation center? What would the cost be? Security measures? Workers?" Angela questioned, folding her hands together. Her wings stretched out slightly in irritation, though Peregrine didn't know this.

Peregrine looked surprised at the amount of interrogation Angela was putting her through, but she looked prepared. "I...I was thinking of reforming that, er, Black Hat dude's house into the center. He'll be gone in the next few weeks I'm sure, given the sudden rise of that group against him." She shrugged. "It'll lower the cost of management, and it'll prevent the city from building a whole new lot. I haven't worked through the rest yet, but I can if you can just give m--"

"Hanna, sweetheart," Angela sighed, "do you know how many times we've tried to get villains who've supposedly reformed to whatever rehab we had in the city?"

"It's _Peregrine_ , and I mean, no, but it's worth a try--"

"And do you know how many times it's worked, getting villains to rehab and getting them to be contributing members of society?"

"Miss Angel, if I could just--"

"It's. Never. Worked." She shifted, her wings stretching to their full wingspan, feathers glittering in the mid afternoon sunlight, and gave Peregrine a leveled stare. "I can't allow this project to pass unless you have more data and more foresight than this."

"But I just want to help them, Miss Angel," Peregrine said, almost pleadingly. But Angela only shook her head. 

"Hanna, once villains are past a certain point, they can never repent. They can never change. There have been studies over this for many years by many different people."

"Those people weren't scientists though."

"Just look at Black Hat. Now he has over half of the city hunting for him."

Peregrine narrowed her eyes slightly. "He's a terrible example. He's always been an asshole, and he'll alway _be_ an asshole," she snapped. "And you're not letting me talk, so that's not even fair."

Angela tapped her fingers together impatiently. Her wings slowly drew back in to tuck against her back. "Hanna, I desperately want to help you however I can, but this is something I can't allow to pass. I'm sorry. Come back soon with more information for me, and I will consider it."

Peregrine shot up from her chair, a scowl on her face. Angela could tell that she didn't lose her temper that easily. Impressive, that. "Fine. I don't _need_ the city's consent for me to build my own damn rehab center for villains. I'll do it by myself if I have to. Shame on you for not wanting to help those who need it."

Peregrine stomped out of Angela's office and slammed the door. With a sigh, the mayor leant over her desk and massaged her temples. 

She had too many things on her plate at the moment. 

Her wings curled around her form to hide her head. Angela desperately needed a nap. And a coffee. And, preferably, some good news.

It later came in the form of an unmarked, unaddressed package, resting atop a corner of her desk. It had been delivered at lightning speed--proclaimed proudly on the front--yet it had been sent early that afternoon. It was nearing dark, and it was unlike the delivery service to send a package that late. 

What was inside was riveting. It wasn't a note; it wasn't a handmade gift. It could've been considered threatening. But it wasn't, somehow.

In it was a single strand of bright lime green hair.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! sorry im a day late; im busy w trying to get everything ready before school starts, and im still trying to get used to a chapter a week schedule. hope you all enjoy! and if there's anything i need to add to the tags, don't hesitate to let me know!

Objectively speaking, Demencia hadn't even been _gone_ for that long. 

In the amount of time she had been gone from the manor, she could've robbed a bank, stolen a car, broken into someone's house, and desecrate a monument, all with enough time to slip back into the mansion relatively unnoticed.

Hell, she had gone on trips to rob gas stations that took longer than her kidnapping and escape.

She looked from Black Hat, to Flug, to 5.0.5, all sat around a table. She sat at the head of the table, and a plate of cookies were between the four of them, untouched. 

"The weather's good today, at least." She reached up, touched at one of her nostrils, and when it didn't come back wet with blood, she crossed her arms, looking slightly pleased. Her healing powers weren't as fast as, say, Black Hat or 5.0.5 or one of the bigger name heroes in the city, but they were much quicker than a human's. She pressed the tip of her tongue into the gap where her tooth has been knocked out--it had been one of her canines too, damn it all--and hummed when she felt a new one barely poking out. She'd be good as new in a little under an hour.

Well, mostly.

Demencia was thankful Flug talked Black Hat into letting her shower and change before being interrogated. He had seemed to have wanted to start pelting her with questions as soon as possible, but even he could respect not wanting to be asked questions while covered in dirt and blood.

Though, the young woman did request 5.0.5 to sit guard in the bathroom. She was...still shaken. She didn't want to be alone, but she'd never admit that. She had a status to uphold. Bless that bear, for all of the innocent trouble he caused, he was the sweetest out of the four of them, and he sat in front of the door in the bathroom patiently, back to Demencia in regards to her privacy, and he even let her ride on his back to the kitchen when she said she was too sore to walk. It was a miracle that she was managing to stand, anyways.

But that had passed, and now she was feeling back to her normal self. Well, almost. Any sudden noise would make her hyper aware of where she was, and she jumped the slightest bit whenever something creaked or the ice maker deposited more ice or Flug coughed.

Black Hat laced his fingers together, resting his elbows on the table as he leaned forward. Demencia would be damned if she didn't admit he looked good. "Given that you were out of the manor for quite some time, I'd like to think that you're an expert on how the weather is today," he murmured. To the right of him, Flug shifted in his chair a little uncomfortably. To be fair, they were old and hard as a rock. Demencia could sleep anywhere, but Jesus, with as much money Black Hat had--or used to, she thought to herself, with the new circumstances--you'd think he'd be able to get some new chairs for the kitchen table.

"Uh, yeah. That's pretty frickin' obvious." She reached for a cookie, but her hand was slapped away from the plate by Black Hat. "Ow! Hey! No one else has been eating them!" She protested.

"What happened?" Black Hat asked, voice low. He looked intent on getting answers and was _not_ fucking around, so Demencia slowly withdrew her hand from the plate. She huffed.

"I already told you. I was taken, so I killed who took me. Easy peasy. Didn't so much as break a nail."

"Is that so." Black Hat furrowed his brows slightly. "Who took you? Surely you got names before you killed them all. I don't take you for a moron, Demencia."

Demencia's heart fluttered slightly at the masked compliment. "I don't know." She shrugged. "I saw on the side of their van that it said falcon, in all caps, whatever that means. I didn't get, like, _name_ names, if that's what you mean." She rubbed at the back of her head. "If it means anything, I think someone ripped some of my hair out. For some reason. I don't know why."

Flug spoke up then, and Demencia felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach at the question. "If it was so easy, why'd you come back with all of those injuries? Not to mention you weren't walking very well." 

Shit. She had hoped that it wouldn't come up. 

There was a pregnant pause, thick enough to cut with a knife, as Demencia hesitated to answer. She looked down at her lap, her hands folded, and bit at her bottom lip. Her new tooth was almost grown back in, she noticed. Also, her sight was vastly improved by not having a black eye, which was nice.

"Demencia." There was a gentler tone to Black Hat's voice that Demencia hadn't even thought was possible. "We cannot help you until you answer us truthfully and quickly."

"We're just worried, Dem."

5.0.5 made a soft chirruping noise in agreement. She dug her nails into her palms.

"They...they wanted dirt on us, the company. Mainly Black Hat, his weaknesses and such. They wanted to know how you got the weapons you sold, how you got us, the employees, if we were loyal, y'know," she finally answered. She could feel three pairs of eyes on her. "I didn't answer them, so they did the logical thing and started to beat me for information. Of course, they thought that I, uh, wasn't _actually_ part lizard, so they definitely weren't expecting me to break out of my handcuffs and claw their eyes out."

Her shoulders hiked up as she heard Black Hat give a low growl. The temperature of the room dropped a full five degrees. "Why did you let them take you so easily, Demencia?" He asked harshly.

She snapped her head up to give him a wide-eyed, indignant stare. "I-I _didn't_! They just...when I opened the door, I thought they were just some customers! Then they put some...some _rag_ over my mouth and dragged me off!"

"You should never let your guard down! Not in the business we're in!" Black Hat barked before he pushed his chair back and stood up, glowering at Demencia. "You should _know_ this by now!" 

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to _expect_ when someone wants to drug me and drag me off to beat the shit out of me for information on you?"

" _Yes_!" Black Hat exploded, slamming his hand down on the table. The plate of cookies jumped several inches into the air, and Flug scrambled to catch the plate before it fell and shattered. "That's _exactly_ what I've been saying!"

"Oh, sorry, _my goddamn bad_ ," Demencia snarled, also standing. Her fingers were curled, and she was using every bit of her self control to not jump Black Hat. She knew he was practically immortal, but immortal or not, getting some scratches to the eye proved for a bad time all around. "If you're so _worried_ , why don't you just have 5.0.5 answer the door, or, better yet, find the strength in yourself for one fucking _minute_ to get up and answer the door yourself!"

Black Hat opened his mouth, as if to respond, but Demencia was _not_ having it. She was going to give him a piece of her mind, and if he hated her for it, then so what. "You know, everyone in this household gives all they can to please you because god _only knows_ how bad it'd be around here if it was all up to you. And what do we get in return? What do we get in return? Nothing. Nothing but ungratefulness and hatred from you."

"This has nothing to do with--"

"Oh, this has _everything_ to do with the situation I was just in. If it weren't for you, I would've just called for help from my tracker!"

"How does this have anything to do with _me_?"

"Well, not that it matters or anything to you, but the last time I called for help from my tracker, you got angry at me for doing that."

Black Hat scowled. "This time was different."

"No, it wasn't."

"Why didn't you just use your tracker?"

" _Because I was scared, you insensitive prick_!" Demencia nearly screamed. Black Hat took a step back, looking aghast. Flug was wringing his hands, and 5.0.5 was tucked in the corner, away from the yelling. 

All was silent as Demencia fought to control herself. Eventually, she choked out, "Because I wasn't in my right mind, I hadn't ever been kidnapped before, and I thought I could handle myself, and I was _scared_ , okay, Black Hat? I was _scared_." She slumped back into her chair, her eyes directed at the doorway of the kitchen. "I'll...I'll try to be more careful. I guess."

She saw Black Hat relax slightly then primly sit back in his chair, hands resting in his lap. Flug sighed, his hand tentatively reaching to rest on Demencia's knee, then he seemed to think better of it, drawing his hand back. "You can go to your room now, if you want. Call for us for anything you need," he informed her with a soft tone. Black Hat said nothing. She looked between Black Hat, to Flug, then back to Black Hat before rolling her eyes and scowling.

"Whatever." She sat up, grabbed the plate of cookies (no one stopped her that time, at least), and headed for the door. She hesitated, and she turned her head over her shoulder to say, "Thank you, 5.0.5, for the cookies." The bear cooed in response, making Demencia smile a little, and with that, she made her way to her room. 

She bit into a cookie, balancing the plate on her other hand. 5.0.5 was way too good at making chocolate chip cookies. She pushed the door to her room open with her hip and shut the door behind herself with a foot, making a final, loud bang ring through the manor.

As much as she didn't want to be alone at that point, she needed some time to herself.

Demencia distractedly scrubbed at her cheek, not even noticing the tears streaking her mascara down her face.  
~*~  
"You want to install a _what_ , now?" Black Hat asked, sounding a smidge defensive.

Flug reached up to tug at the edge of his paper bag out of habit. "A security system, sir," he replied. "It'd help us, uh, protect the manor and ourselves better. You'll also be able to see what's going on inside and outside of the house as well. I could get it completed within two days."

It was about two hours after Demencia had went up to her room. Shortly afterwards, Black Hat had dismissed 5.0.5 from the kitchen to discuss some issues with Flug (the bear didn't leave until Flug scratched him behind his ears), and Flug heard 5.0.5 paw at Demencia's door, whimpering, before finally being let in, the door clicking shut quietly. At that, Flug had let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. At least Demencia would be comforted by 5.0.5, something that neither Black Hat nor Flug could bring themselves to do at that moment.

"Absolutely not, Doctor." Black Hat got up out of his chair and began to pace in front of the table. Flug watched his boss with an idle expression. "I can protect us and this house well enough with my power."

"What about with Demencia today?" Flug murmured, tapping his fingers against the side of his bag. Black Hat paused in his pacing, considering, before rolling his eyes and continuing in his agitated movement. "Besides, what if your power lapses one of these days? We'd be nearly defenseless. On top of that, as much as you would _like_ to--to think, you don't know what's going on constantly around the manor. And your... _hellhounds_ and whatever other hellish creatures you keep--they can't really relay information quick enough."

Black Hat scoffed, pausing to narrow his eyes in Flug's direction. "That's impossible," he spat. Whether that was in reply to his powers lapsing or his... _pets_ being sufficient relays (or possibly both), it was hard to tell. 

"So's silence from Dem, but here we are."

They both listened for any movement from Demencia, and, hearing nothing, they both resumed their conversation.

"Alright, that's fair, Flug." Black Hat, for the third time, resumed in his pacing, now a little more frantic. "Granted, we still need to make a video for this week. Will the security system suffice?"

"O-of course. It'd give us an upper hand as well. People will, uh, see that we've stepped it up, so to speak." Flug fidgeted with his gloves. "And, erm, the corresponding monitors to each camera will be in your room, boss," he continued.

His boss gave him a sharp smile. "Excellent, Flug. Don't let me down with this," he warned the scientist.

"Right, yes, thank you _Jefecito_ \--"

"And, I suppose, you've done well so far." He stepped towards Flug, and Flug's eyes darted to the hand now resting gingerly on his shoulder. He felt his breath hitch a little. "Just try not to destroy the lab again, hm? I cannot insure that I won't pop one of your veins if I have to put another IV in you."

Flug choked out a, "Yessir" and offered Black Hat a smile. He didn't realize until a moment afterwards that Black Hat couldn't see his smile due to the bag, and he felt like a bit of an idiot for it, but Black Hat didn't seem to mind.

"To work, Flug," said Black Hat softly. He winked at him then melted into the shadows, leaving Flug suddenly chilly and almost wheezing, his cheeks heated at the attention.

It took Flug only one and a half days to finish the security system, and the second half of the second day was spent filming the commercial.

Despite the shortcomings of the security system on tape, the cameras and monitors functioned fine. 

The land mines and yard spikes wouldn't be able to be tested until they really needed them, so Flug decided to wait on that.

Good thing he did.  
~*~  
Peregrine pulled her coat around herself a little tighter, glancing around the new surroundings with a sense of unease. While she could most definitely take care of herself, it was still unsettling to see so many people on the street eying her like a piece of fresh meat. 

It had been the day before whenever she had asked the mayor for help on a rehab center for villains only to be shot down and interrupted time and again. If Angela really _did_ care for all of the citizens of the city, as she claimed, then why was she so hesitant to okay something that'd benefit the city and the civilians? It wouldn't _just_ help reformed villains get their feet back underneath them, it'd bring some jobs in and even lower the crime rate. Peregrine had done hours upon hours of research, all taken from different places in the world with rehab centers for villains, and it had all pointed to suitable evidence that it'd _help_.

If Peregrine hadn't been kind of wary of Miss Angel before, she definitely was now. As much as she hated to admit it, her parents were right about Angela and her resistance to any idea that wasn't hers. She should be willing to listen to anyone's ideas, and she should be willing to help whomever she could, even if she didn't agree with their morals. Not only that, but Angela had disregarded her request to call her Peregrine, which _really_ pissed her off. 

Immediately after Peregrine had stormed from the mayor's office (giving the secretary quite a scare), she had went home and talked to her parents. It was true that her parents had worked with Angela in the past. That wasn't what surprised Peregrine the most.

"She can claim to be the people's representative all she wants," her dad had said, "but she really, truly is in it only for the fame. She's a show off, Peregrine."

Her mom, from where she was sitting at the table, scribbling on a notebook some notes about her new script, nodded distractedly. "Angela isn't to be trusted, Peregrine. She only cares about the people who can benefit her the most. When we worked with her..." she shuddered. "Some of the stuff she did was downright _monstrous_. I hate villains just as much as the next gal, but...ugh." 

"Your mother and I actually debated briefly about leaving the city, going elsewhere," her dad admitted, leaning against the counter to look at Peregrine. He was peeling a potato with lightning quickness, yet he was still managing to keep his gaze on his daughter from where she sat at the table next to her mom. "Whenever Angela was elected, I mean."

Peregrine's mom took her glasses off and wiped a hand down her face. "Not to mention, she was always jealous that I could turn into a bird at will. As if she _didn't_ have a pair of wings sprouting from her back." She shrugged lightly. "But she _did_ name the organization after me." 

"Neat. Bet I can guess what it's called." Peregrine grinned at her mother, and her mother smiled back before standing and stretching.

"Bet you could, too. Come with me." 

Peregrine had always known that her parents were retired superheroes, like Angela (except better; having a superhero for a mayor was alright, but having parents as retired superheroes was _kick-ass_ ), but it wasn't until that former day that her mother showed her the mementos from their past, and, a little while after dinner was ready, her father joined as well.

There were several more things Peregrine found out that night: 

Black Hat had been around way before her parents had been born, but it wasn't until a decade ago that he started his business. He didn't have any business partners or employees up until a couple of years ago, and even then, they just...showed up.

Her parents didn't know about her own superpowers, which was great. They also didn't know much about Peregrine's project, other than she was hyper-fixated on it and had talked to Miss Angel about it.

Angela might've been hated by Peregrine's parents, but they would be damned to not admit to the fact that they were amazed at how precise she was at shooting her targets. She'd take a gun any day, but give her a bow and a quiver full of arrows, and she'd have a field day ("Flashy, dramatic, and cliche, just like her," Peregrine's father scoffed, earning a giggle from Peregrine and a smirk from her mother). Apparently, she also had rapid healing powers. Her code name had been none other than Angel.

Sometimes, her parents would drop by a bar quite literally off the map that would be full of villains. They were actually good friends with the bartenders, and they'd often get discounts on drinks. Not only that, but they'd get an earful of villain gossip that'd always keep them two steps ahead.

Long after her parents went to bed, Peregrine had snuck back into the room stock full of memorabilia of their heroic days, digging through hundreds of old pictures and documents and awards to find anything to help her get Angela's support.

Nothing had seemed to help (well, except of a group picture outside of a desolate looking building--possibly the bar that her parents had been talking about, which she definitely needed to stop by), and it wasn't until she was about to give up that she spotted a box, hidden behind several crates, that was dusty and obviously hadn't been messed with in years. It was hard to spot among the crates, and she would've missed it had she not been through everything else already.

On it bore two words, in all capitals, one of the words seemingly a nod to her mother's power: 

"PROJECT FALCON".

So Peregrine had dug it out from behind the crates, sat down on the floor, and opened it with a touch of trembling in her hands. 

What Peregrine discovered was so vile, so absolutely _disgusting_ , that she couldn't help but feel a sudden anger towards her parents.

They had been openly involved with it. They had wanted it hidden from Peregrine, to never see the light of day again, but there it was, in her hands. Pictures of ripped open corpses, decapitated heads and limbs, torture, even hides held up by heroes in the project, beaming happily at the camera, all of villains. 

It hadn't even been major villains, either. They were all hunted down and killed or tortured without mercy, without a chance at redemption.

The cause behind the project had been to lower the crime rates and the number of villains in the city, but at the bottom of the box, where the project was ended abruptly, Peregrine discovered that it didn't help either factor.

It made crime skyrocket, and more and more citizens became villainous as revenge for their fallen siblings. 

With every villain that had been targeted, their file was pinned to whatever pictures of their demise had taken place. Every target picked by the organization had been eliminated, save for one.

Black Hat.

A short list gave the names of all who had been involved. 

Peregrine's parents had been the ones in charge of rounding up the villains.

A hero with laser vision, torture.

A heroine with super hearing and sight, tracking down the villains in hiding.

The list went on and on until it reached the name of the person who had been in charge of the project.

Peregrine had blinked in confusion, then, before pulling the paper closer to her eyes. 

The name had been blotted out.

She growled in discontent, throwing the paper back into the box. Whatever. She just needed to put it up before she got caught.

Except...except she _couldn't_ , not then, because there were too many questions swimming through her mind at that moment. 

She did what any logical person would've done. She put the contents back in the box, closed it, and took it with her to her room, hiding it under her bed.

Peregrine wasn't about to ask her parents about it. She definitely wasn't going to talk to anyone else who had been involved with it. So she made her mind up.

There were, without a doubt, no take backs on this one, she told herself as she stared up at the door of the bar. It was amazing how quickly she found it, yet the cops and a lot of the heroes still had no idea it existed. One look at the picture of the group of heroes stood in front of the bar gripped in her hand confirmed it for her.

Peregrine took in a deep breath, straightened, and pushed the door open.

What hit her first was the stench. The second thing to hit her, as every individual at the bar in that moment turned to stare at her, was that it was a _very_ big mistake to come.

The general clatter silenced, and Peregrine cleared her throat before focusing her gaze on the bartender, who was giving her a steady glare in return. As she walked forward, the bartender snapped, "You lost? We don't serve minors here, girl."

The young girl quietly sat down on a bar stool, clasped her hands together, and smiled politely at the bartender. "Not lost, no," she replied, "but I _could_ use some help. Is the other bartender here, too?"

The bartender narrowed her eyes further, a scowl building on her face. "No. The other one's been dead for years," she deadpanned. "What could _you_ possibly want from me that would be any more important than what you could get from those sorry excuses of law enforcement officers?" She asked, voice dripping with disdain. When it was obvious that the bartender would be handling the situation, the patrons returned to their previous events, if only a touch more serene. 

Peregrine looked around to see if anyone was listening before leaning in. "You know my parents. The Bainses?" The bartender looked a bit taken back at that, and she was about to retort with something, but Peregrine rushed to finish her statement. "What do you know about FALCON?" 

Now the bartender looked almost afraid. "Look, kid, I can't help y--"

"I want to help. I know that you and my parents talked about it, and there's no _way_ it's a coincidence that the same group that was supposedly abandoned years ago is suddenly back in business. There's no way. It's not just for Black Hat and his cronies. If we don't take it down _now_ , none of your customers will survive, and you might not, either." Peregrine searched the bartender's face desperately. "I may not be a villain, but you guys deserve chances at getting help, too, and being hunted down and killed isn't the way to do it."

The bartender, in a bout of sudden anxiety, picked up a dirty mug and started to wipe it out. She was silent for a long while before answering. "I don't take sides, kiddo. I'll go ahead and admit that the only reason as to why I give info to Black Hat is because as much as I hate the nasty bastard, I hate Angela and her little group of snakes that do every bit of her bidding her. I don't know if she's involved with FALCON, I don't know if she ever was, but she sure as shit hasn't tried to stop them. And why would she, if they're doing the hard work for her?"

Peregrine blinked owlishly. "I didn't know you gave information to Black Hat. That's pretty rad," she said truthfully.

"Uh-huh. Speaking of, one of his employees got kidnapped today."

"That's awful."

"She killed every single one of her kidnappers, though. I'm pretty sure FALCON was behind it, and they're sure that she's dead because they haven't said anything to dispute the claims, and trust me, they would if that were the case. She's crazy as hell, but I respect her, especially for that. She comes here once in a while to order an entire bottle of whiskey, slams the whole damn thing, then skitters on out of here, not even drunk, and then about a while later I catch wind of some whacko robbing a bank with a lizard hoodie, and I'm like, yeah, that's her alright." She clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Villains these days, I tell ya what."

Peregrine giggled a little then arranged her face back into one of seriousness. "So you'll help me?"

The bartender sighed. "Do I have any other choice at this point?"

By the time Peregrine left the bar, she held a small paper pass in one shaking fist, slightly crumpled. 

She knew she was playing with fire, doing this, but she had to help somehow. She wasn't going to stand by while lives were being threatened. 

The first step was infiltrating FALCON, which, due to the access pass the bartender had given her (fake, of course, but the bartender had informed her that they didn't check too closely on who attended as long as they wanted to be there), would be incredibly easy. Any information would be passed to the bartender.

And if, for any reason, the bartender was unable to fulfill her duty of informing Black Hat...

Then Peregrine would be the informant  
Which, the bartender had told her, was unlikely, but anything could happen.

After all, Peregrine reasoned, wasn't it better to be prepared?

"Why do I want to help _him_ though?" Peregrine had asked at one point. 

The bartender had merely smiled, tiredly, at her. "Girlie, do you want to keep people from dying?"

"Yes."

"This is a battle against him. He's going to need whatever help he can get. He's going to be the one to finish it, too. You have to trust me on this."

And Peregrine did. She didn't like Black Hat. She didn't like what he stood for. But the sooner FALCON was put to rest, the better for anyone involved.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! we're halfway through already! how rad is that? it's going to start getting super dark in this chapter; this is where the graphic violence particularly kicks in. thanks for sticking with me, and thanks for reading!! enjoy!

"Hey. Fluginator. _Fluuug_ , answer me. I know you're down there because I can hear your asthmatic wheezing. Need your inhaler?"

Flug stifled a sigh, pressing on the button to answer Demencia. "Dem, for the last time, I don't have asthma. Just because I'm your run-of-the-mill mad scientist doesn't mean I have all the stereotypes of a geek," he muttered.

"Okay, first of all, you called yourself a mad scientist. That's super geeky. And two, why's the internet one big pile of cables on a truck? Doesn't make sense. Oh, and the wires or whatever in my amp aren't working again."

"I've already told you, that amp needs rewired from the inside out; the electricity isn't being conducted properly due to the fact that the insulation on the wires has melted. And we've been over this already. It's a series of tubes that run through--" He heard Demencia start cackling, and he reached up under his bag to wipe at his face tiredly. He walked right into that one. "What do you want, Demencia, other than to torment me?"

Demencia laughed again at the other end of the line. "Come to my room. Chill. You deserve it after working for, like, thirty some hours without rest on the security system," she cooed.

She had a point, although the security system had long been finished and advertised (once again, only bets were placed, but no one bought anything). All Flug was doing at that point was improving on his handheld death ray, which he'd figure he'd need eventually. He glanced nervously at the nearly finished collar that was sat at the far corner of his desk. He really needed to finish that, though. "Demencia, I'm a little busy at the m--"

"Aw, that's bullshit, Flug. Come up. Don't make me come down there. I'll shove spiders in your bed again."

"Alright, okay, Christ--" Flug took his finger off the button, set his ray down gingerly, stood from his desk (now moved well away from the wall), and stretched before making the trek to Demencia's room, rubbing at the back of his sore neck and muttering to himself. Admittedly, it felt nice to finally be up and moving around, breathing in the woody scent of the manor instead of the astringent, stale smell the lab tended to harbor. 

Interestingly enough, her door was open whenever he got to her room, and even more baffling than that, her room was nearly clean save for a pile of clothes in the corner. The young woman herself was sat, cross legged, in the middle of her bed, cleaning the strings of her bass with a cloth. She greeted him with, "Hey, geek ass," without even looking up.

Flug scowled underneath his bag and perched himself on the edge of her bed. "You know, you don't always have to make fun of me to let me know you adore me," he said. He reached up and adjusted his goggles, and Demencia raised a brow at the movement.

"Who said I adored you?"

"Uh, me. And you admitted it the other day."

Demencia, after inspecting her cleaned strings and seemingly satisfied with the result, balled the cloth up and threw it at Flug's head. "I said that I adored your _hugs_ , dude. Not the same thing."

"Uh-huh." Flug sounded a touch full of himself. "Your room is impeccably in order, Demencia," he noted, not without amusement. 

"'Your room is impeccably in order, Demencia'," she mimicked in a squeaky voice. She leant down, grabbed her bass's cable, plugged it into the port, and put the strap on before settling on the bed, now lying against the headboard. "It's because I'm waiting for Black Hat to come in here and get me laid."

Whatever Flug was expected, it _certainly_ wasn't that. He choked on a breath. " _What_?"

"Nah, I'm just messing." She plucked at the strings on her bass, doing a quick scale up and down. It was a lot quieter than Flug had expected. "I couldn't find my weed." When she looked over and saw him staring at her incredulously, she snorted. "Hey, mad scientist, it's a _joke_. 5.0.5 wouldn't get off my ass because he claimed he couldn't dust around all the junk in my room. What a load of shit, right?"

"Actually, he has a fair point; your room was atrocious--"

"Like your lab is any better?"

True. "Touché."

Demencia plucked out chords and bits of songs (some Flug recognized, others he guess were from bands she listened to), staring up at the ceiling, oddly silent, and eventually Flug laid back on her bed, his paper bag crinkling underneath him.

"I thought you said your amp wasn't working."

"Well, it _wasn't_ , but apparently, it'll work if you put the cord a certain way, like--" She stopped plucking the strings for a moment to move her cord to the left of where it had been positioned, and she brushed the pad of her finger against a string. No sound came out. "See?" 

"Ah. I'll get that fixed, though. Just bring it to the lab." He heard her shift the cord back into its original position, and lazy chords filled the room again.

"Hey." He was nudged in the side of his head by Demencia's foot, and he looked over at her, narrowing his eyes. His expression froze when he saw how uneasy she suddenly was. "Do you think...like, are you..." She struggled with her words for a moment, trying to formulate a coherent sentence. Flug waited patiently. "Are you scared?" She finally blurted out.

"Of what?"

"Y'know, the whole...thing. With so many people finally getting the balls to come find us and kill us. Didn't think that day would ever come, but there's a first for everything." Her fingertips lightly scraped up and down the strings of her bass, creating an unearthly, reverberating sound that wasn't too bad to listen to. 

"This isn't the first time it's happened. For Black Hat, anyways." Flug hesitated. Then he said, softly, "Yeah. I'm a little scared. Why do you think I put so many weapons into the security system?"

"Do you think Black Hat's scared?"

He didn't immediately answer. While Black Hat tended to not show his feelings quite as clearly as, say, Flug or Demencia or 5.0.5, it was obvious when he was upset, more than usual. He got quieter and more drawn in, less prone to yelling at any little thing out of order. And while Flug had seen Black Hat pleased with the sudden influx of weapons and bits of money from anonymous donators, even taking inventory on them, it just wasn't the same as making a sale to some unknowing customer. And the lack of customers and increase in threats against the company obviously had their boss worried.

Flug furrowed his brows. "I don't think he can be actually _scared_ scared, like you and me. But I think he's...concerned. Especially with the way the business has been going down the drain lately. We haven't had a customer come to our door in weeks." He shifted his glance back to her ceiling, decorated with posters of bands long broken up and those little glow in the dark plastic stars. "I just hope the stuff we've been hearing doesn't come true."

"Flug?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks. For coming up, I mean." She nudged his head with her foot again. "There's only so long I can stand 5.0.5 for. I don't really like being alone so much, anymore."

"I get it."

"Coolio. Shut up and just chill now. There's nothing else going on right now, so why worry about it."

"Wait, I...there's something I need to say."

He heard Demencia give an exasperated sigh. He said hurriedly, "I'm working on a prototype of a collar to...to _restrain_ Black Hat's powers."

He practically heard Demencia freeze up. "What? Why?"

"I..." He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "I don't know. It's just... _nice_ to have precautions, y'know?"

Demencia let a few seconds tick by before she answered flatly, "No. I don't. Why suddenly the worry?"

That was a genuine question, which was hard to come by. "It's been in the works for a while. I just...improve on it in my spare time."

"Gradual, huh?" Demencia tapped her nails against the hard plastic of her instrument. "Whatever. I just...I'll ask later, Flug. We need to lay low for a while. Take our minds off of things."

Entirely unlike Demencia to say something like that, but Flug agreed.

Flug spent another two hours in Demencia's room, listening to her play bass and occasionally requesting songs, before 5.0.5 came to retrieve them for dinner.   
~*~  
"Wait! Wait, hold on, I'm here, I'm here!" A harried voice cried, assisted by hurried footsteps and rapid panting. The two figures standing guard next to the door, almost swinging it shut to lock it, shared a look.

"Ma'am, we can't let you in unless--"

"Unless I have a pass, yeah, yeah, I know," she said breathlessly. She produced a bright orange slip of paper, waving it in front of one of the guard's faces. "There. See? A pass. Now let me in, you dolts. Haven't got all day."

Reluctantly, the door was opened back up, and the woman slipped inside, hefting the clipboard loaded with papers into her arms. She glanced over the nearly full conference room--all eyes on her--scowled, and picked a seat next to a slightly sickened-looking teen. The woman looked over at the young girl and sneered. "Your parents let you come to this?" She asked in a low voice. 

"My parents don't know I'm here," the girl replied shakily. She reached up to brush a strand of silky black hair away from her face and sighed softly. "They aren't, um, big on hunting. If you know what I mean." She paused. "And it's my third time here. They aren't as observant as I, uh, thought."

The woman tsked and rolled her eyes. A child of heroes, then. Heroes nowadays were too soft, even by her standards as a semi-respected villainess. "It isn't much of a hunt if all Black Hat does is sit atop his pile of money and laugh at city. This is a cause I'm willing to contribute to, as much as I _despise_ working with the filth that call themselves _heroes_ in this city." 

The villain ignored the way the teen looked at her strangely. She settled back in her chair and crossed her arms, focusing her attention at the front of the room, where a small podium was set up. This should be a better meeting than last, she thought to herself. 

The lights in the room dimmed, and on the screen behind the podium shined the now-familiar insignia (the bird carrying the snake in its talons) as a figure in a white cloak swept onto stage, the hood hiding the face of the figure. 

They leaned into the mic, their voice warbled as ever. "Blessings upon you, my friends, on this lovely evening." A few scattered responses littered the room for a brief moment then were swept away like garbage by the figure as they continued. "We have a very busy night ahead of us. We are _very_ close to finishing the final step to begin our raid on Black Hat, where he's sat in his manor so peacefully and without any worries."

A short round of applause. The villainess didn't clap. She noticed the nervous teen beside her didn't as well.

"I thank you all for dedicating so much time and work to this cause. It'll be worth it, not just for us, but for the innocent civilians who have dealt or are dealing with Black Hat and his nefarious ways. This city will prosper again, and our _beloved villains_ ," behind the figure, under the cloak, shifted something, though it was hard to tell what it was from so far away, "will once more be in control of their futures, not having to suffer under the iron fist of Black Hat and his corporation.

"Of course, there's one thing we must address before we continue any further." The figure paused, then they murmured, darkly, "There have been reports of spies among us, relaying our information to Black Hat and any others who are sided with Black Hat, going as far as providing him with money and supplies so he doesn't leave his abode. This only serves to make this job more difficult." 

There was a heavy, nervous air hanging in the room, and the villainess felt her heart skip a little. They wouldn't have specifics, they're too stupid to do that.

"Here's a quick reminder to all of those who have questioned where their loyalty lies in this battle."

Peregrine scrambled back from the villainess she had been sitting next to, now staring up at the ceiling, wide eyed with a bullet through the brain, and bit down on the sleeve of her jacket, muffling a scream. That could've been her.

There were cries and yelps of surprise as five others were shot and killed, each for committing treason against the group. The foul, metallic scent of blood filled the room, and as the others in the room looked around at the now dead spies in shock (a few were heroes, even, but mostly villains). 

The figure kept speaking as if nothing had occurred. "These traitors have been giving guns, bombs, lasers, anything you can name or possibly _think_ of, to our enemy. And all for what? What did they get in return from Black Hat, other than a one-way ticket to a bullet in the brain? Nothing. I'm sure that if we brought them back to life and asked them if it was worth it, to betray us and the city, just to provide Black Hat with things he certainly didn't need, they'd answer with no. 

"Now, if there are any other spies in the room I need to know about, please stand up, and I _may_ consider giving you a painless death like the rest of these vermin."

Silence.

"Good. Now that that's over with, let us continue with our plans."

Peregrine sat with her knees against her chest, eyes wide and heart beating fast. She could barely hear what the figure was saying at that point, as she was still trying to resist vomiting at the mere fact that there was a corpse still sagging in the chair next to her, blood dripping on the wooden floor and little bits of grey brain matter and shattered skull speckling the maroon pools. 

She caught snatches of "west wing" and "large group of" and "don't hold back" and "kill them", but she couldn't even begin to piece them together. 

Then, it occurred to her, like a lightning bolt in her traumatized state, and she didn't even know if it was true or not.

The bartender was likely either being held hostage or was dead.

She needed to pass the information on to Black Hat.

And fast.

Because the group would be attacking in two days.

The figure finally finished with, "And be proud of being part of FALCON! Together, villains and heroes will prosper again!"

"Forever and always lifting control from our nemeses," droned the remaining members of the room.

Peregrine was already running for the door. She almost slipped and fell in a pool of blood, which stained her already red converse a sinister color.   
~*~  
Black Hat hating pacing, he hated waiting, he hated listening to his employees argue, and he hated being unnerved.

Boy, oh, _boy_ , and did he _ever_ so hate it whenever all of those godforsaken things were combined.

"Flug, we can't just keep _waiting around_ for the sky to fall or whatever! I need to get out the house, anyways, so let me go out so I can hunt down the people who are supposedly out to get our skin, and--"

"Demencia, that's _impossible_! You'd be killing the entire city!"

"The entire city isn't against us, though! Just look at the people who've been bringing us guns and shit!"

"They've been with us the entire time we've known of them!"

Black Hat reached up and rubbed at his temples. He forgot how much he despised headaches as well until he could feel one building. "You two, shut it," he snapped. "I tired of your inane bickering."

Demencia muttered a brief, "I'm right, though," before closing her mouth, earning a glare from Flug. 

"Alright, now that you two are _done_ , I can finally hear myself. I was informed earlier that another meeting would be held by FALCON today, but about what, I'm not sure." Black Hat stopped in his pacing, his head bowed. "I haven't gotten anything back about what the meeting was, as my stem of resources and information has suddenly, and without warning, ceased."

Flug was wringing his hands again. "Meaning, sir?"

"Our allies have been hunted down and killed, as I expected."

Demencia covered her mouth, stifling a soft gasp. 5.0.5 whimpered and covered his eyes with his paws. Black Hat took in a breath and continued his pacing, one hand held up, pointer finger towards the ceiling, as if to make his statement more relevant.

"That being said, we _must_ be prepared for anything now. No leaving the manor for anything, no answering the door, no hesitation in killing anyone who dares set a single foot upon the lawn. I will _not_ tolerate idiocy in these times. One mistake _can_ and _will_ get you killed.

"I don't know what to expect. As painful as it is for me to admit, there's only so far my powers can go. So, if we're to expect to survive this _pitiful excuse_ for an attack, you all must be on your toes. Always, all the time." To emphasize, he snapped his fingers, and tentacles wrapped around the ankles of the others, yanking their feet out from under them. Demencia was the first to rebound, bouncing back up and reaching for the knife in her sock, eyes searching the room warily. 5.0.5 was next, slowly clambering to all fours and snapping his jaws at the remaining tentacles, bawling quietly. Flug, the last, slowly got to his feet, rubbing his chin and grumbling softly. His ray gun was held in one hand, humming to life with a click of a button. 

"Much too slow. You all would've been speared in a heartbeat."

Flug, still holding the ray gun, asked slowly and carefully, "What should we do, then, sir?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but a blast that rattled the manor followed by a screech had the quartet looking towards the front door. Demencia, almost immediately disregarding his previous advice, rushed to the door and wrenched it open, despite the barking from Black Hat and the yelping from Flug, and gasped loudly.

"There's a bird with a broken leg out here!"

5.0.5 registered "bird" and "broken leg" and ran to the front door, making distressed noises, and Flug followed, looking harried. 

Black Hat wanted to rip his face off then stab his eyes out. Instead, he inhaled very slowly, held it, then let it out, brushing off the front of his suit.

A bird was nothing. He could kill a bird, no excess energy required, if the bird turned out to be a relatively weak hero. 

He strode to the door and crossed his arms. "What. Did I. _Just_. _Say_ ," he growled out. The trio seemed to ignore him, as they were all huddled around the bird. It was fluttering on the ground, making weak peeping noises. 

"Hey, Flug, I think the security system works," Demencia said, pointing to the laser slowly powering down before tucking itself back into one of the panels on the outside walls. Flug shot Demencia an irritated stare.

"It looks like a dove," Flug informed the group as he reached out to take it into his hands.

It squawked, snapping at his fingers, and there was a sudden shifting, a poof of feathers and the sound of bones cracking and muscles snapping, and there laid a girl, clutching at her leg and gasping in pain, tears streaming down her face. The bone was exposed, skin torn.

Black Hat was upon her immediately, one hand on her neck, pressing warningly, while the other hand was donning claws. "Who are you, and why are you here?" He roared. The girl choked and reached up to grasp at the arm holding her neck. Her mouth was moving, but barely any sound was coming out.

"Hat...news...for you..."

He loosened his grip on her neck, and she rolled onto her side without the broken leg and retched, her body shaking. She was starting to go into shock. Black Hat could hear Flug rummaging in the pockets of his lab coat desperately, and he produced a small vial of purple liquid. 

"Open her mouth, Black Hat." Flug knelt next to the girl, and Black Hat was too surprised to correct Flug on calling him Black Hat (though, if he was being truthful, he enjoyed it; nevertheless, he had a status to uphold). He opened the girl's mouth, who was barely conscious, and Flug poured the contents of the vial into her mouth. 

"Flug, I genuinely hope that you aren't trying to experiment on this girl because this is a _very_ inappropriate time to do so."

"No," he answered absentmindedly, "it's an instant healing drug, one use. I save it for whenever I accidentally chug one of my experiments instead of my coffee."

"How many do you have left?"

"I think that was my last one."

The girl rolled onto her back, wheezing softly, eyes fluttering. Her leg was beginning to mend, the bone shifting back into her leg and the skin and muscle threading back together. It was only moments later that she woke up, her eyes shining with confusion. After a moment, realization dawned, and she sat up, scooting back from the group. 

"Again. I ask. Why are you here?" Black Hat growled. 

The girl nibbled at her bottom lip, glancing around at the group nervously. "Wasn't my leg broken, like, a few seconds ago?" She asked, twisting at the sleeves of her jacket. Black Hat noticed her shoes were coated in blood.

"Hey. Girl. What's your name?" Demencia piped up as she gently nudged her hip with her foot. 

The girl jumped, and she brought her hands to her recently broken and healed leg, tracing the light scar in awe. "Does it matter?" She shot back, a touch of snark gracing her voice.

"Yes. Answer us."

She flinched at Black Hat's harsh voice. Good. She was afraid. "Peregrine," she answered after a moment, "and I think...I think I'm your only informant left."

"What do you mean?" Flug folded his arms, expression guarded (as guarded as he could look with a paper bag and goggles, anyways).

"I mean that all of your spies, your contributors? They're either dead or will _be_ dead, in a matter of hours." Peregrine shakily rose to her feet, regarding the group with a scowl, hands in tight fists. "And I'm the one with the information right now."

Black Hat stiffened. So he was right, after all. "Spit it out, girl, we haven't all night," he snarled.

Peregrine leveled her stare at Black Hat as her eyes narrowed. "You have two days to prepare for an attack from all sides. They're--FALCON's--not going to hold back, and it sounds like you're not going to get any help. From anyone. If you think I'm joking, I dare you to take your chances with little to no defenses." Her eyes wandered to the side briefly, to search for the laser, and Black Hat couldn't help but smirk, and she returned her attention back to him. "I'll be on the other side, killing whoever isn't with you, but I can only get away with so much."

"Why are you telling us all of this?" Demencia demanded. She took a step forwards, but 5.0.5 made a warning noise in the back of his throat, pawing at Demencia's shoulder. 

"Because my parents were part of FALCON. I don't want to be like them. It's not fair that you guys don't get a chance at redeeming yourselves." She paused, shuffled her feet. Continued quietly, "And I saw several people get murdered today just for helping you. No warning, no _nothing_."

Black Hat sneered. "You're very foolish for coming here, unarmed." And foolish for risking your life for something as menial as this, he wanted to add, but he knew it wasn't menial.

He was relieved, actually, to get the information.

Peregrine smiled. "Maybe. But mama didn't raise a cold blooded killer, and she certainly didn't raise a girl who'd stand by while innocents are killed."

"'Innocent' is a strong word to describe us and what we do, girl--"

"Whatever. Do what you will with the info. You're welcome."

Black Hat stepped back as she, once again, with the spine tingling sounds, shifted into a bird, no longer a dove, but, fittingly enough, a peregrine falcon. She cocked her head, cawed once, and took off, darting through the air and speeding off. 

He didn't realize he had grown a few extra sets of teeth and eyes, the concrete of the sidewalk cracking underneath him, until Flug piped up with a gentle, "Sir?" and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Black Hat furrowed his brows, watching the bird grow smaller and smaller in the sky. "We have things to discuss. In the house."

"B-boss, if I may--"

"No. In the house."

He could tell that Flug wanted to argue further, but he said nothing. Instead, the scientist led the way into the house, followed by 5.0.5 and finally Demencia, who lingered a while longer to watch Black Hat. 

The demon clenched his fists, eyes scanning the yard, body tense.

In the years he had been alive, he'd always taken heroes at face value, always calling their bluff.

He didn't think that they were joking, now.

FALCON was coming for them, and they needed to be prepared.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! happy saturday! ill be starting school soon (bleh) but hopefully ill be able to keep the quality of the chapters up! the next chapter starts with the super heavy gore, so be prepared for that. this is a relatively short chapter, but i swear, ill make it up to you with the next one. enjoy!

If this was what chaos looked like, Flug couldn't even begin to imagine what it'd be like when the fighting started. 

His portion of the work pertained to _organized_ chaos, however, and there had not been a day when his lab had been cleaner.

He stepped back from his desk and wiped at the sweat building under his bag. All of his inventions, all of his tools, all of his chemicals...all locked up and hidden away, as ordered by Black Hat. It was under the guise of cleaning, of course, and his lab smelled strongly of bleach and artificial lemons.

All that was left was the power controlling collar Flug had made for Black Hat. It was resting on the desk, in the middle, and Flug stared at it.

Why had he _really_ followed through on making it, though? His boss had become quite a lot more fond of him lately, but the idea had bloomed earlier on in his career under Black Hat's employment. On top of that, he and everyone else in the manor would need Black Hat's protection if the upcoming assaults were really going to happen. 

So why did he still have it? For future insurance? For his sanity? For something to work on in his spare time? Flug wasn't sure. He _really_ needed to get rid of it before Black Hat found it...or before it fell into the wrong hands. It would be disastrous for them all if FALCON found the collar. It'd be game over, and they would all die.

A short, exasperated sigh left Flug's lips, and he reached underneath his bag to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He was tired, and he could feel a headache building from having dealt with so many cleaners and from breathing in the fumes for so long. It was funny, in a way; he often spent hours among ammonia gas and arsenic but never so much as developed a sniffle, yet the bleach and the stain removers left him reeling. 

He reached forward to grab the collar to put it away...

...and a hand on his wrist stopped him, grip firm.

A startled yelp emanated from Flug, and he struggled briefly before stopping whenever he realized it was Black Hat. It was only a small relief, for he was sure Black Hat was there to berate him for something, but a relief, nonetheless.

"Why, Doctor, I'd like to think that you're used to my grasp by now," rumbled his boss's voice close to his ear, and Flug couldn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine.

"I...ah, um," Flug stammered out. Real smart.

Black Hat loosened his grip on Flug's wrist, and the scientist released an anxious breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in. So he _wasn't_ mad. That was good.

"Your lab is cleaned." Black Hat sounded pleased, and Flug felt himself warm a little at the tone.

Flug felt Black Hat shift closer to him. "A-as you ordered, s-sir."

"Hm." Flug would've closed his eyes then, perhaps leant into Black Hat a little, kept the silence between them somewhat comfortable and pleasurable...

But Black Hat's hand inevitably slid down, grabbed the collar, and brought the hunk of metal towards his face to study it. Flug's entire body froze.

"What is this, Flug?"

A sharp, metallic tang filled his mouth as fear began to creep upon Flug. "I-it's a, um, a collar, sir," he said quietly.

"It's too small to be for that useless bear, and I don't believe you have a dog anywhere around here."

"N-no, sir."

"Is it for one of my hellhounds?"

"I-- no?"

"You don't sound too sure of that."

"It's not for--for the hellhounds, sir. Promise." What the hell was this conversation? Where was it going?

"Is it for Demencia?"

"No."

"Don't suppose it's for you and one of your weird... _past times_."

Flug made an indignant noise. "No!"

Black Hat's breath was skating across the bared skin of Flug's neck. "So, what's it for, then?" He asked lowly, and Flug felt the temperature of the room drop a full two and a quarter degrees in a matter of three seconds.

At that point, Flug had two options: tell the truth and get to Black Hat's anger quickly, or lie and face the inevitable consequences. He decided that he'd like to keep some of his skin, so he took in a deep breath and straightened, snatching his hand from the device to cradle to his chest.

"For you, sir." Surprisingly, his voice didn't waver; he didn't tremble; he didn't even stutter. Flug was resigned to his inevitable doom.

"For me," Black Hat replied, his voice flat and featureless. "Pray tell, Doctor, why would I need a device such as this? Is it to be sold?"

"No."

"Then why does it exist?" 

Flug curled his hands into fists, let his eyes squeeze shut. "Itstostopyourpowersifnecessary," he rushed out, adding a quick "sir" as an afterthought.

Black Hat paused for a moment, as if to consider the new information, and he slowly pulled away from Flug. The scientist turned around to see Black Hat holding the collar up to the light, inspecting it with almost a bored expression. "You act as if I didn't know about this little _project_ of yours. The cameras don't lie, Flug." He paused. "To stop my powers? Why, Flug?" He asked, genuinely. That took Flug off guard, but he straightened and dusted his coat off with a huff.

"For insurance. For if I ever need to get out of here. For whenever you take it too far, and I--" His breath hitched. "And I need something to keep you from getting me."

Black Hat frowned and creased his brows together. "And if it malfunctions, when you need it?" He replied. He...wasn't angry?

_When he needed it_. That was the kicker. Something sharp stabbed him in the gut, a sense of sudden dread filling him. Black Hat was insinuating, essentially, that he would one day not be able to control himself.

Was he warning Flug? Trying to, dear god, _protect_ him? Why would he start _now_ , out of all of the years he had worked for Black Hat? Question after question built up in the back of his mind, but Flug pushed through them to answer with, "Then it's a risk I'm going to have to take."

Black Hat stared at him. The clock in the back of the lab filled the deafening silence with tick after tick, marking the seconds that they'd never be able to get back. Sweat trickled down the back of Flug's neck, and he was hyperaware of how loud his breathing was. Finally, _finally_ , Black Hat opened his coat, tucked the collar into an inner pocket, and closed the coat once more. 

"Flug."

"Yes, sir?"

"Go to the kitchen."

He opened his mouth to respond, but Black Hat's form had already melted into the floor, and Flug caught a shadow racing towards the door, moving in the direction of the kitchen. He sighed and leant against his desk, burying his face in his hands.

He still had the blueprints for the collar, but he didn't know if he'd be able to find the materials to make it again.

Nevertheless, Flug eventually cleared his throat, stood up, and walked towards the door of the lab, carefully avoiding a few rickety tiles here and there. 

That would've been near catastrophic.

On his way to the kitchen, Flug ran his fingers along the walls of the manor, taking in the old wallpapers and the beat up furniture that had suffered under Demencia's--sometimes Black Hat's--abuse for so long and the chandeliers. He looked at the paintings that Black Hat had stolen; he looked at the fraying carpet; he looked at the spots where he had caught the hellhounds, growling lowly, out of the edges of his goggles. 

He didn't know if, after tomorrow, it would all still be in place.

Flug enjoyed his walk to the kitchen for the first in a long time, and he hoped that, tomorrow, he'd be able to do the same walk, with the same views, on his way to the kitchen.

He felt...almost at ease.

Demencia was rubbing at the fur on 5.0.5's belly, the bear making pleased coos and kicking his feet delightedly, whenever Flug walked into the kitchen, and Black Hat was sat at the table, tapping a pen to his lips as he glanced over a basic outline of what little information they had gathered.

"And I _did_ manage to find that old mace of mine whenever i was looking for my throwing knives! You'll never guess where it was; I had thrown it in my closet whenever I had cleaned it out, and--hey, Fluggy!"

"Don't call me that."

"Aw, dude, you're no fun." Demencia pouted until Flug rolled his eyes, and she grinned at him. He noticed it didn't hold the usual mania that her smiles tended to harbor. That alone was enough to bother Flug. 

Black Hat, without looking up, said, "I've been to Flug's lab already. Everything has been cleaned and hidden, as I had expected. Anything else I should know, Doctor Flug?"

"Ah, no, sir."

"Nothing at all?" Black Hat's voice dripped with malice, but Flug only shook his head and took the seat opposite of Black Hat. "Good.

"5.0.5, have you set the spikes in the living room?" A soft, displeased _aroo_ from the bear served as confirmation.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Flug?"

"I couldn't find the cloning device, so I assumed that..." Flug faltered whenever Black Hat held his hand out and the device materialized on his hand. "Alright. Never mind. I _did_ finish the ray, and I even--here, let me..." Flug cursed under his breath as he stood and searched himself, reaching into pockets and feeling around his belt, until he lit up, producing a small gun-like object. 

Black Hat raised a brow. "Does it work?" He asked as he tapped his fingers against the table.

"Of course."

"So those heroes I gave you to test on didn't go to waste?"

Flug brimmed with pride. "No, sir, and the ray did its job well," he replied, not without sounding a little smug of himself.

"Good work."

Demencia was laying across the stomach of 5.0.5 whenever Flug spared a glance her way. "Cool, what's it do?" She asked, eyeing the ray with a look Flug was _very_ familiar with. 

Flug scowled and holstered it back at his belt. "You are _not_ going to chew on it. It'd annihilate the entirety of your bottom jaw, and I'm not sure that you'd be able to grow it back."

"Did you use it to torture those heroes? Was that the screaming I heard a few days ago?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, then, and gave Flug a lewd look. "Or was the screaming from something else, tiger?"

Black Hat scoffed as Flug tugged at the bottom of his bag, feeling his cheeks heat. "Of _course_ it was him torturing those heroes, what the hell else would it be?" Snapped Black Hat. "Besides, he's a lot quieter than th--"

"Alright, okay, I get it, you two _love_ picking on me, but please, dear god, change the subject?" Flug quite nearly begged among the giggles of Demencia and the pleased humming of Black Hat.

The rest of the evening was spent finalizing the plans. Black Hat sent the hellhounds, the spirits, whatever else lived in the house alongside them, back to where they had came (he claimed it was to avoid further conflict whenever Flug had pointed out that their help could be beneficial, but Flug was certain it was because Black Hat harbored enough affection towards the creatures to keep them away from harm); Flug assisted 5.0.5 in finding the old anti-gravity device and placing it in an inconspicuous location in the living room; Demencia bounded off to set as many bear traps as possible in the yard, the automatic camouflage Flug had designed specifically for them causing them to blend in well with the short, well maintained grass of the lawn. If Flug concentrated hard, he could see them as well as the mines he had buried.

The yard was going to be an absolute mess.

Then, all stilled as they waited for whatever the morning would bring. 

The manor was tense and quiet, with a tension thick enough to slice with a knife.

It was unspoken, but perhaps there was a touch of fear as well. You know, like the kind they inflicted daily on the surrounding neighborhood.  
~*~  
Demencia couldn't sleep. Her mind was racing. She was afraid of what was going to occur tomorrow, although she'd never admit to it out loud. 

After a while of just tossing and turning in bed, she slipped out from under the covers, tucked a knife into the waistband of her pajama pants, and emerged from her bedroom only to slither along the walls of the manor. She decided that the moon looked pretty. She wanted to watch it and see the stars, too.

Cautiously, as to not alert 5.0.5 of the fact that she was out of bed--he'd throw _such_ a hissy fit--she dropped to the floor, and she stood in front of one of the many grand windows of the manor.

The moon was full, and the light almost hurt her eyes after being in the dark for so long. 

She crossed her arms in front of her, and Demencia's shoulders hiked up as she closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. 

She hadn't really slept since she had been taken. Every once in a while, she'd find herself nodding off over a bowl of cereal, or in the shower, or even in the middle of bothering Flug (who'd give her a weird look and ask if she was okay, to which she'd respond with giving him either a wedgie or a noogie), but she was always awake, always alert, always on her toes...

She felt like a walking zombie. 

Sure, it could've been a lot worse than what she had gone through. Hell, she'd beaten the shit out of people worse than what she had gotten hit with (ha) in that van. Still...

Demencia bared her teeth, growling low in her throat, as she squeezed her eyes against the memories. She hated them, and she hated feeling weak, and nothing would ever be the same, and now she wasn't even sure if they'd make it to see the next sunset--

"Demencia."

She jumped, whipped the knife from her waistband, and spun around, eyes wide. Black Hat's form was barely hidden in the shadows, his monocle glinting with the little light that shone on him.

"What are you doing out of bed?"

Instead of snarking him as she so desperately wanted to, or instead of just being pleased with the fact that he was paying attention to her at all, she stammered out, "I--I was just--the moon looks--"

She was spending too much time around Flug.

Yet, Black Hat didn't seem to mind. Well, he didn't really say anything. 

Demencia rocked back and forth on her feet, eyes directed elsewhere. She reached for a stray piece of hair, braided it, unbraided it, with one hand as the silence stretched between them. "I didn't mean to...I mean..."

"You're scared."

Her head snapped up as she was filled with a sudden, unquenchable rage. "Like _hell_ I am! No one in this household is supposed to be scared! This is just a one time thing, just something that comes and goes, and I hate...I hate..." She sniffled, and she absently reached up to wipe away a tear. "I hate feeling like this. I'm so tired, I just want to _sleep_ , and I _can't_." Her figure slumped, and she stared down at the floor, tears blurring her vision. "I just... _can't_."

The knife clattered to the floor, loud in the ghastly quiet. She buried her head in her hands, her body suddenly becoming wracked by sob after sob. It almost hurt. It was insulting that she was having a breakdown over something as menial as just not getting enough sleep, but it was downright embarrassing to have said breakdown in front of her boss and her idol.

An arm slid across her shoulder blades, another supporting the back of her knees. Demencia felt herself buckle, and she was scooped into a strong, reassuring hold. Her chest heaved as she cried, tears running down her face to gather at her chin and drip down onto her shirt. There was the soft padding of feet on wooden floors, and Demencia realized, idly, that, first off, Black Hat was carrying her, and second, he wasn't wearing his shoes. Just socks, it sounded like.

She supposed super villains got tired of wearing shoes after a while, too.

Her eyes were still closed whenever they reached her bedroom (she could tell by the smell), and she managed to open them whenever Black Hat gingerly set her on the bed. His face looked pinched with worry, though she was sure it was just because of the face that she probably snotted on him at some point. Black Hat tugged the blankets of her bed up to her chin, sat down on the bed next to her, and placed two fingers at one of her temples.

Demencia shuddered, and she found her muscles starting to relax as a warmth filled her body. Slowly, gradually, the grip of sleep began to tighten around her, and she struggled to keep her eyes on Black Hat for as long as possible.

He was looking down at her with a tired smile of his own, brows drawn together, while his fingers gentle massaged her temple. "Sleep," he ordered with possibly the least amount of malevolence towards her that she had ever heard from him. 

Shakily, she reached up, and Demencia pressed a hand against the back of Black Hat's own, nuzzling into it.

She was sure she was only imagining the way that Black Hat's breathing hitched, and Demencia, in the morning, only brushed it off as part of her sleep-deprived state.

It was the best sleep she had ever gotten.

Demencia would never know that Black Hat had spent the entire night in her bedroom, looking after her, as she slept with a peaceful expression; she didn't toss or turn once.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! i hope i can do yall justice with this chapter :') there's a lot of violence in this one, and it's only gonna get worse from here >:)   
> i don't own Chartreuse (thanks Clovermun! <3) or Lilly (and thank you, puppyinabox!! <3), so thanks to them for letting me kill their characters lmao  
> enjoy!

The outside was so unassuming, so bland, so very cold and grating, that there was no way this was the place.

The woman looked through her binoculars, sniffed derisively, and handed them back to her underling, who struggled to hold onto it for a moment before stuffing it into his pocket. If it hadn't been for the giant hat shaped house, she would've scoffed at the idea of this being the residence of one of the most powerful, if not _the_ most powerful, villains in the world...possibly the universe.

There was a quiet mew, and the woman looked down in mild interest as a cat wound itself around her legs. A black cat, actually, and it seemed almost fitting. She rolled her eyes and kicked it away. The cat arched its back, hissed, and ran off.

The group of individuals--heroes and villains alike, _unfortunately_ \--scuffled and murmured, their words lost in the easy breeze blowing past them. The sky overhead was a nasty bruised shade. It was likely to rain. That always put her in a better mood.

"Hey, uh, miss, how we gonna get in if the gate's locked?" A voice chirruped from the crowd. 

The woman closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, got ahold of her temper, smiled, and opened her eyes again. "Well," she started, dripping with disdain, "I think we should ring them up, ask them if they want to have a quick talk over some tea."

"Really?"

" _No_ , you bumbling _idiot_!" She shrieked, spinning around and throwing the crowd a wild eyed, rage filled look. "We're climbing the fence! If you can't bloody well climb a fence, you're _useless_ , and you're going to die as _soon_ as you hit the ground!"

They were the first group to arrive. Several more were to follow behind them, though at what point, the woman wasn't sure. She growled under her breath and dusted her jacket off. "Line up. Everyone pick a spot along the fence. Don't climb the gates; do you not see the barbwire, you morons?"

She looked along the fences, both ways, and shook her head. Her _soldiers_ were primed and ready to go. As ready as they could be, anyways. Many of the younger, less powerful villains and heroes looked scared shitless. Must be their first real gig, the woman thought to herself with a grin.

The woman raised her hand. Slowly, the rest of her group followed suit. She pointed one finger upwards, and then she stuck her boot in between the bars of the section of fence she was at. The fence groaned as thousands of pounds, as nearly twenty people, assaulted the metal. 

One by one, individuals began to swing themselves over the top of the fence to land in the lawn. The woman perched herself atop of the fence, making sure her group was all across, before she landed, the last one, on the grass. She stood and crossed her arms. Not even a gnome to greet them, she wondered. This was going to be a piece of cake. Just sneak in, kill them all, get back out with evidence, and roll around in the spoils--

A loud clapping noise sounded before a harsh scream disrupted the silence. The woman's gaze snapped to her side, where her underling lied, clutching in disbelief at a bleeding stump of where his foot had been moments before. Said foot was resting in a solid-looking bear trap, well hidden from the camouflage that was shimmering away. They locked eyes, and bile rose in the woman's throat. She took a step backwards, and a soft clicking was all she had in warning before the world lit up in a blast.

Then the yard erupted in chaos.

All over the lawn, bear traps that had seemingly leapt from the grass were chewing through legs and even arms. Mines were tearing apart people limb from limb, throwing debris and gore all over the grass. Blood stained as far as the eye could see. 

By the time all of the traps had been activated, only five remained, largely uninjured, and they collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk that led up to the doorstep of the house.

Screams of agony, pleads of help to end their suffering because dear god, their legs were lying five feet away from them or their arm was barely hanging by a thread, filled the quiet of the neighborhood.

The five remaining were all plucked off, one by one, due to one of them going mad and tearing their hearts from their chests until, finally, he himself tore his still beating heart from his own chest, managed to bite out of it, and fell to the ground, twitching and soiling the earth with his blood.

It was only a matter of minutes before the stragglers of life gave in, and there was silence once more among the crackling of the fires beginning to spread on the lawn, browning the grass to charred blackness and seeping onto the bodies littering the lawn.

At the very front, where it had all began, the gates swung open, very sluggishly, giving off an ominous squall. 

It seemed to almost invite anyone who dared enter the cursed zone.

And oh, you would imagine that there wouldn't be a _soul_ that would even think of doing such a suicidal thing.

Unfortunately for those _brave souls_ , there were.  
~*~  
Even with the front door open, it was nearly pitch black in what one could only assume was the foyer. It was cavernous, and there was a good two minute walk to reach the double doors separating the foyer from the main hall.

The rather timid looking hero clutched his gun closer to his chest. They were all given orders to shoot on sight, as the massacre that had happened on the front lawn had driven the entirety of FALCON towards thirsting for revenge. That had been many of their comrades, their friends, hell, even _family_ , that were now lying in pieces on the lawn, some charred from the fires that had burned themselves out.

He wasn't sure that he'd be able to kill anyone. Sure, they were _villains_ , and they had done some pretty nasty stuff, but didn't they deserve a chance at redemption, too? The only reason as to why he'd joined FALCON in the first place was because of the promise of money. His family needed it. They were dirt poor.

The hero blinked, eyes adjusting, as someone in his group turned on a flashlight. "Come on," said the one holding the flashlight, "the doors are ahead."

"How come _you_ get the flashlight, Frost?"

"Because boss told me I was the head of the group. Keep walking."

The hero frowned disapprovingly in the direction of this... _Frost_. That really didn't explain much, and besides, wouldn't it be more efficient to let everyone have a flashlight? Maybe the funds were just low. Whatever. He wasn't going to argue with boss's logic; they seemed pretty set on their plans, so far, and on _top_ of that, everyone had to follow their directions, or supposedly, they weren't going to survive.

That already hadn't worked out, following orders, he thought bitterly. The ones decorating the front lawn with their blood could say otherwise, except they were dead.

The hero managed to clamp a hand over his mouth before a hysterical giggle escaped. They really _were_ going to die.

At that thought, the flashlight's bulb popped, and Frost swore. "Alright, Lightning, pal, if you're messing with me, it's not very funny," he snarled.

"It...it's not me," came a woman's voice, thick with fear.

The pitch blackness was terrible. The hero passed his hand in front of his face. He couldn't see it.

A horrible gurgling noise sounded, followed by a loud squelching and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

Then, one by one, sharp toothed, acidic green smiles surrounded the group. In the light coming from the teeth, the hero could see the apprehensive, downright petrified looks on his teammates' faces. He gulped.

"Hello." The mouths spoke as one. "You seem to be trespassing."

The hero, in a sudden burst of adrenaline, lifted his gun, shouted, "We refuse to stand here and take death with our heads bowed!" and aimed, with shaking hands, at the nearest sharklike smile. He pulled the trigger.

The smile vanished, and a sudden cry sounded before another thud filled the air. The hero dropped to his knees, the gun hitting the floor, as he stared down at his hands. He had shot a teammate.

"Oh. Pity. She'll bleed to death, I'm sure. I'll let her witness _you_ die, first."

A sharp, tentacle like object was protruding from the hero's chest, shiny with his blood, before the hero could so much as scream, and he choked out a sob.

As his vision faded, he saw Black Hat after Black Hat swarming the group, tearing them apart and peeling the skin from their bodies like tangerines. Whenever anyone could get a shot in, the Black Hat that had been hit gave a shriek and vanished.

The hero curled up in a pool of his blood, lips barely moving with words lost in the howls of despair and pain.

He hoped FALCON would at least give his family the paycheck they needed to get by for the month.

Ten Black Hat clones. Twenty-five soldiers.

Only four clones remained, but all of the soldiers had died.

The foyer was swimming in blood.

Ahead, the double doors to the front hall opened silently, and the four clones limped forwards, wincing.

If they couldn't use their physical abilities, they could always revert to the method of turning themselves inside out and drive any witnesses to instant insanity. 

All at the expense of Black Hat; there was no doubt about that.  
~*~  
"Donna, David, Maddie, Spider, Flounder...alright. Everyone's here. No one died on the way up? Unbelievable." A villain, going by the name Merlot, proudly proclaimed from a name tag on her shirt, rested her hands on her hips, stroked the handles of her double pistols resting in the holsters. She stood just in front of the double doors, back to a winding staircase, facing her group. "Not gonna lie, I expect some of you pussywillows to suffer sudden heart failure just from the walk up here."

"To be fair, that's a lot of blood, and I--"

Merlot rolled her eyes and tsked. "You're a nurse in your free time off from being a hero, Savannah, do you really think that I'd believe for a _second_ that that blood doesn't affect you?"

"Well, in that amount, yeah--"

"Shut up. I don't care. Jesus, you guys are gonna end up like those poor bastards out there," she muttered, rubbing her temple with one hand and gesturing towards the foyer, and extended beyond, the yard, with the other. "Alright, boss said to split up from here. The rest of the groups would be following us pretty closely behind." Merlot looked around at the faces staring back at her, some scared shitless, others indifferent. She raised a brow. "And that means we have to choose teams."

Merlot swore that dealing with a group like this was asking for trouble, especially since they couldn't seem to evenly split up. It was largely villains, though there were some smaller name heroes mixed in too, and Merlot, a villain herself, was _so_ damn grateful that she worked by herself.

"Now that _that_ part of the circus is over...boss said the _more skilled_ heroes would be in the last group to come, so if you're holding out for them to come and save you, you're outta luck. Just try to survive until then at least, yeah?" She drew the pistols from her holsters and nodded her head towards her left. "My group, follow me. Other group, go right. Best of luck."

"What about upstairs?" 

"We'll deal with it later. C'mon."

Merlot was a bit surprised that they hadn't received any housewarming gifts yet. Not even a fight? Perhaps those cowards were just biding their time. It wouldn't surprise her.

As she walked, she couldn't help but to admire the lengths Black Hat had gone to decorate his manor. Stolen paintings? Great crystal chandeliers? Furniture that looked like it belonged in the nineteenth century? Wallpaper that was well maintained and bore the company's insignia? She ran her fingers along the wall. Apparently not booby trapped. Impressive. She'd get a fair share of items from the sabotage.

The manor was certainly bigger than it looked. 

She suddenly halted, holding a hand up to bring her group to a stop. "Kitchen. I'm hungry. Might as well make a pit stop, right? " Merlot smirked. Looking behind her, she scoffed and rolled her eyes as not a single individual even smiled at her joke. "Tough crowd. Alright, assholes, let's get this job done."  
~*~  
The monitors showed Black Hat that all was going according to plan. 

Front lawn? All dead.

Foyer? Dead as well.

The rest didn't stand a chance. He sneered. The current group in his manor, filthying his _humble abode_ , was splitting, fifteen and fifteen, into groups, which would only lead to their deaths quicker.

Still, he couldn't help but be concerned. Demencia was perched atop of some cabinets, well hidden in the shadows, but she hadn't so much as giggled since that morning (even then, it had been a halfhearted laugh, hardly anything in comparison to what her usual laugh was like). Flug was pacing in his lab, muttering to himself and gesturing wildly. Not even 5.0.5 could be bothered to look as cheerful as he usually did. His flower was drooping, and his eyes were wide with fear.

He scowled, his shoulders hiking up. No. He didn't _need_ to be worried. Why did he care? This was just another fork in the road, just another distraction, just another prevention from his company being furthered. The pain from having his clones being taken down by those annoying little _pests_ were taking a toll on him.

He sat back down heavily at his desk, eyeing the collar that Flug had made that rested at the corner of his desk. Why was he keeping it? Oh dear god, he sure hoped it wasn't for sentimental reasons.

A deep, hidden, tiny part of him knew otherwise.

He kept every invention the scientist made, no matter how awful it had been.

His eyes snapped back up as the air in front of his desk shimmered, and ah, there were those straggling clones. One was propped between two others. The fourth stood apart from them.

Black Hat cleared his throat. "Well?" He barked out.

The clone that stood apart from the rest frowned slightly. "Suffered major casualties, as you can see."

"Tell me something I don't know, will you?" Black Hat snapped.

"You're thinking of making more clones. It'll harm you, ultimately. Don't you remember Doctor Flug informing you that your energy, your power, would be sapped each time you brought to life a clone? They're a fragment of you, and there's only so much a glass can shatter, you know."

Black Hat leaned back in his chair. "Other than that, what's stopping me?" He demanded.

The clone smirked. "This." He turned and thrusted his hand through the chest of the weakest clone that had been supported. That clone hissed, and he shrieked as he melted into nothing. The other two clones, no longer supporting anything, straightened.

All the while, Black Hat was leaning forward, gripping his desk. It felt as if he had lost a vital organ from losing that clone. Teeth gritted, sweat gathering on his face, Black Hat managed to grit out, "I see your point."

"That one needed to be rid of, anyways." The clone flicked his claws casually. "Three of us alone can only go so far, and you have limits as well. I suggest saving us for any _unexpected_ guests, perhaps towards the end--"

"Employees first."

"--and I...what."

"I said." Black Hat rose from his seat, pointing towards the door with one hand, his other arm wrapped around his side, as he snarled. " _Employees first_. I'm not an idiot. Go to Flug. Go to Demencia. Go to that damned useless bear. Keep an eye on them, do whatever it takes."

The clones all hesitated. 

"Are we _really_ going to do this? They mean nothing to you--to _us_ \--"

Black Hat turned his head away. "You're only lying to us all. Just... _go_ ," he muttered.

In the blink of an eye, they had melted into the shadows, racing towards the door and slipping underneath. Black Hat, suddenly overwhelmed, collapsed into his chair, shaking slightly. The collar glinted in the light of the monitors, cheerfully.

That entire exchange would be what Flug, that brilliant man, would describe as a cosmic joke.  
~*~  
Merlot was going the opposite direction, towards the lit end of the manor. Of _course_ , she had to assign the job of being leader to Chartreuse. Of _course_ , Chartreuse's group was heading for the darker end of the mansion. And of _course_ , all of this had to happen _inside_ , where Chartreuse's glasses blocked out most of the light, anyways.

They pressed their lips together. They weren't about to take their glasses off, though. No, no, no. Absolutely not. They refused. They were basically walking blind...

Until they remembered the flashlight Merlot had given them. They smacked their forehead, grumbling something about their anxiety being such a damn saddle, and flicked their light on. 

"It's about time, you green giant lookalike," someone muttered in the group. Chartreuse ignored it, although the remark did spike their (already through the roof) fear levels slightly. Was it possible that their teammates were already turning against them? No, surely not. Hopefully. And it wasn't like they were super tall or anything. Their skin was just green.

They continued forward, the beam of the flashlight sweeping back and forth, and the sound of their group trooping behind them filled the heavy air. 

The lights overhead suddenly flickered on. Oh, boy. That was always good.

Chartreuse, once they had gathered their bearings, realized that they were all in a rather spacious room, accompanied by some armchairs and lush couches. They were arranged in a circular shape around a fireplace. In front of the fireplace laid a large blue...bear? With a flower on its head? It looked like a buttercup.

It raised its head, and it gave a quiet, mournful bawl, eyebrows drawing together in what looked like fear. Although it was cute, there was no reason in risking it all just to fall victim to a bear that looked like it belonged in a children's cartoon.

Chartreuse reached behind them to grasp the gun slung across their back, eyes narrowed at the bear. 

The bear only backed up, whimpering, as its own eyes widened in panic. It made another baleful sound, but Chartreuse only shook their head. Pity. They really wanted to pet it.

"Everyone, take aim and fire on my command. It seems harmless, but there's no point in risking the outcomes."

Chartreuse's group slowly circled around the bear and drew their weapons. Those without guns stood by silently, awaiting the carnage, arms folded and expressions neutral.

"On three."

The bear lowered itself to its front, eyes darting back and forth.

"One." The guns clicked quietly as the safeties were disengaged, muzzles aimed at the bear.

The bear peeked down at its paws, bottom lip trembling. Chartreuse almost felt bad.

"Two." There was a noise of shuffling. The bear closed its eyes, seemingly accepting its fate.

Before Chartreuse could say the next term, there was an ear shattering _bang_. There was a sudden mass of black, tentacles and teeth and eyes all mutilating the space between the bear and the group, and it seemed to absorb the bullet before shrieking and melting away. The bear was unharmed. It seemed as surprised as the rest of the group. The offender--the shooter--had no time to react in regards to having their neck spliced open like a melon.

Unfortunate, given that they were a terribly good shot.

Unaffected, already in the moment, Chartreuse blinked then rolled their shoulders as they looked through their scope. "Three," they uttered.

The bear cowered in on itself as there was a quiet noise, like a button depressing, and Chartreuse caught the bear gingerly holding a small, orb like device in its mouth before covering its eyes, shaking.

Then they were all flying towards the ceiling, along with all of the furniture, like balloons, bobbing about in the air. Chartreuse's arms windmilled whilst attempting to get their bearings.

Absently, they reached up and wiped away a drop of blood.

Wait. 

_Blood_?

They looked up, and their jaw dropped. Haunting wails filled the air, and more and more of the group tried to swim their way through the air, trying desperately to get away from the spikes embedded in the ceiling, the spikes spearing individual after individual, the metal sprouting from their limbs, sternums, foreheads. The blood was beginning to gather in puddles in the air, unable to fall to the ground due to the lack of gravity.

Those unseeing eyes. Jaws slack, life force slowly draining away. The poor souls that had to suffer for so long, bleeding out or giving into their shock--

Someone bumped into Chartreuse in the air, spinning them off track of their escape, and they let out a pained grunt. Spikes, through the legs, the arms, shoulders, guts...

Down below, the blue bear hadn't even budged. Its eyes were still covered by its paws.

It didn't want to look up.

Eventually, after all of the screaming had--no pun intended- -died down, the blue bear got up, spitting the device out of its mouth and leaving it behind to hover in the air, and ran on all fours towards the stairwell, weeping all the while.

So much blood.

It'd rain blood when the device was deactivated, ruining the beautiful Victorian furniture.  
~*~  
Merlot rested her hands on both of her pistols, eyes sweeping the perimeter of the kitchen. It was rather well lit, save for the corners and on top of the cabinets, and, just like the rest of the house, the kitchen was large. 

Merlot had to admit, she was glad she joined FALCON after so much hesitation. It was super sketchy at first, given that in the past, the organization had tried to track her down and kill her, but they offered a good reward if they all managed to take down Black Hat. 

The payoff would be worth it, it would seem.

Merlot drew one of her pistols, and she started into the kitchen. Behind her shuffled in her (useless) group, and she could sense how uneasy they all were.

In the middle of the kitchen was an island, and on the island laid a basket full of fruit. Merlot looked behind herself at her group, shrugged, and sauntered to the basket. "I said I was hungry," was what she defended herself with.

She plucked an apple from the basket, inspecting it mildly, before sniffing at it. She could feel the group's anxious gazes on her, as if they didn't _really_ expect her to eat it. 

"Hey, Merlot?"

She sighed through her nose. "What, Lilly?"

The green haired woman shuffled nervously. "I think I heard something moving in one of the back corners."

Merlot lowered her eyelids in annoyance. "It's probably some giant spider or whatever. Just...kill it with a fork or something." She turned back around and took a bite from the apple, taking a step forward.

That was as far as she got.

There was a yell behind her, and she spun around again to face the group. "What the hell--" 

One of the heroes laid on his side, clutching at a knife that had embedded itself in between his ribs. He looked rather afraid. "Something's in here," he said, and he promptly vomited blood and let his head thud to the ground, rather dead.

There was a snickering, the giggling of a girl, so quiet one would have to strain their ears to hear it, but it was there, nonetheless.

A silver flash, and this time, a blade dug itself between the eyes of a woman. She collapsed to the ground, adding to the hero's pool of blood.

Merlot snarled, eyes searching for the source of the knife thrower. She just had to wait.

Another knife whizzed through the air, and Merlot didn't even bother to see who had been killed before pitching her apple in the direction the blade had came from. A pained yelp made Merlot grin manically.

"Shoot her," she commanded, and the kitchen, usually such a peaceful and delightful place for bonding, filled up with shots and yells and blood, ending the serene appearance.

Knife after knife cut through the air, hitting Merlot's group members with deadly accuracy, one by one. Skittering along the walls, the ceilings, was heard as the knife thrower traveled to and fro, getting the best position to hit whatever unfortunate person was nearest.

A knife landed just in front of Merlot's shoe with a _thwack_ , and Merlot looked up, miffed, just in time to see a trail of bright green hair disappear into the darkness. Merlot raised her pistol, a sneer marring her features.

"You think you're so smart, killing my dumbass teammates." Another thud as a body hit the floor. Merlot's team was down to five, including herself. "I don't _care_ about them, is the thing."

Lilly's voice exclaimed, "Merlot, you piece of shit, I can't believe they teamed me with you," before it was cut off with a rather nasty sounding gag, and Merlot turned to find that a steak knife had been forced into her throat.

Gross. Not a huge loss, though.

"I'm just here for the cash. Killing Black Hat makes it all the more worthwhile." She sidestepped another blade, which pierced the eyeball of one of the stragglers. Merlot ignored the bloodcurdling scream. Another two knives and another two bodies curling to the floor.

Only Merlot remained.

She looked around at the carnage, and she stepped over a still twitching corpse. "But killing you makes it worthwhile, too," she continued, and she waited, waited, waited...

Until another blade, spinning through the air, caught Merlot's attention. She pulled the trigger, and there was a sweeping sense of cold, a build up of pure, tar black, that blocked the knife thrower from harm, and it squawked and shattered into pieces onto the floor below, slowly melting into the shadows. Merlot shot off another round, and this time, a cry of pain left the knife thrower. 

An identical one left Merlot, and she stumbled back in disbelief, her hand dropping the pistol. The blade was in her shoulder. When she looked back up, the knife thrower was disappearing into a vent. Merlot scowled, and she reached up with her functioning hand to yank the knife out.

It was a deep wound.

Thankfully, there was more than enough fabric to supply the bandage with all of the clothes the dead bodies had.

Merlot would be damned if she wasn't impressed by the display of raw accuracy the assassin had shown. She had wounded the knife thrower, at least. 

It was a small comfort, but it was a comfort, nonetheless.  
~*~  
Reports of deaths, heroes and villains alike, were pouring in by the dozens. 

Now, hero and villain deaths were rather common to hear on a daily basis. Five, six maybe, each day. The most at one time would've probably been ten in one day.

The numbers that Darla kept giving Angela were climbing into the forties and beyond.

Angela stood, her back to the rest of the room, facing the window. Outside, the sky was a repulsive shade of grey. It was going to rain, then.

_Delightful_.

"M-Miss Angela, dreadfully sorry to interrupt again, but--"

"Darla, if it's another report of a hero's death, bless their soul, I don't want to hear it."

Angela could practically feel her assistant wincing. "Actually, um...it seems to be a request for help?"

The winged heroine tensed, her wings spreading slightly. "From whom?" She questioned softly.

"I...I don't know. There's no return address. The seal has a bird on it and a snake, I think, but--"

Angela turned to see her assistant shuffling awkwardly in front of her desk, looking down at the envelope in her hands with a squint. She reached out, snatching the envelope from Darla (who yelped and turned a rather charming shade of pink), and delicately sliced it open with the letter opener perched on her desk.

Her eyes scanned the letter. 

And then she smiled.

"Oh dear."

"What?" Darla was possibly being far too nosy for her own good, but Angela couldn't be bothered to care. Her wings were trembling a little with excitement.

"Do you remember that organization, Darla, that managed to take out villain after villain in this city?"

"FALCON?" She sounded confused. "I thought they were disbanded because they were causing more harm than good, and that was a while b--"

"They've recollected." Angela straightened, not looking up from the letter. "And they're asking for my help."

"What?" Darla spluttered before saying, "That's impossible!" and followed up with, "Where?"

"Not impossible, and seemingly at Black Hat's manor." She flipped the letter over. "Looks like that's where the casualties are coming from." Angela looked up and cast a look over Darla's form. "Take the rest of the day off."

"Really?"

"Yes. You've done enough; go home." Angela turned her gaze back to the window to hide a grin. "There's not much else you can do, anyways."

Darla shuffled on her feet again. She had a terrible habit of it. It seemed as if she was going to say something, but Angela was wrong, as her assistant finally trudged from her office, mumbling some words in thanks of Angela's suddenly generous offer.

Her assistant was much too dull to catch on, as was the rest of the city. She'd be hailed as a hero once again.

Too easy. It was all too easy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry for being gone for so long!! school has been taking a lot out of me, and ive been super busy! i promise i haven't abandoned this project though! on that note, i have a couple of announcements. one, ive decided to extend this fic to nine chapters due to the fact that i cannot fit all that i need to fit into only eight chapters. two, due to the fact that school has me so busy, i may only be able to post one chapter every two weeks. i want these chapters to be as good as they can be before you read them. thanks so much for being patient with me. as always, any mistakes are mine, and feedback is much appreciated. there's gore and violence in this chapter, so beware of that. i hope that you'll enjoy! <3

It was no surprise to Peregrine that so many of the neighborhood's families were moving out. As far as she could see, actually, it looked like _every_ house was empty or in the process of emptying.

Of course, it all made sense whenever she overheard one of the other heroes claiming that Angela had issued an emergency proclamation to the neighborhood that it was in their greatest and safest interests for the families to move, at least temporarily, if not permanently.

Peregrine looked at the bodies still decorating the front lawn of Black Hat's house and shuddered. Some of them still had their eyes open.

Her parents still didn't know about her endeavors; if they did, they didn't show much interest in preventing her from doing so. 

Maybe they were trying to teach her a lesson about heroism. 

It wasn't all fun and games. Heroes could be bad, too.

Even if they hid their darker side well enough to fool the public.

Peregrine found herself fighting tears, and she reached up to quickly brush them away. 

She was scared. 

Heroes weren't ever supposed to be scared. She was a _hero_ , though she didn't believe herself to be. She was going to be killing people. Maybe she was on the wrong side of the war. 

Her thumb skimmed over the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Peregrine hoped she'd make it out alive, if not injured.

She wanted to go home.

Her dagger, thumping against her thigh in its scabbard hooked to her belt, seemed to drag her away from her thoughts, and she glanced up to see her group starting towards the manor. She took in a deep breath, squeezed her wrist once, and followed in her superiors' footsteps.

She wasn't sure if she'd end up using the dagger. Peregrine just had it as extra insurance. Hopefully.

Once the fighting began, she wouldn't be attacked any of the Black Hat, Inc. members.

She _had_ promised to help Black Hat, after all. 

Peregrine's eyes narrowed as her eyes bored into the back of one of the heroes' heads. Yeah, _they_ would make a great stabbing target. They had already brushed her off and told her she was too young to be fighting.

Then, the force of her violent thoughts hit her, and she covered her mouth with her hands.

What the hell was she going to do?  
~*~  
Ray gun? Check. Traps? Check. Clean goggles? Check.

Anxiety low and hope high? Not a chance.

Flug stood in front of his desk, hands clasped behind his back, as he gazed at the door to his lab with nervousness. He had locked the door--not that that would stop an army of powerful villains and heroes teaming up--and had bolted all of the vents shut, so there was no possible way anyone could get in.

The scientist spun around at the sound of a grate clattering to the floor, whipping the ray gun from the holster at his belt. He must've missed one. Great.

But all of his thoughts on how to escape, on how to pull the trigger on his gun and make a run for it, seemed to halt all at once as Demencia dropped from the vent, stumbled two steps, and collapsed to the floor, face first, with a weak groan. Flug stared down at her in shock, seemingly frozen, but at the sight of blood soaking through her jacket, staining the charcoal grey an almost tar color, he scrambled into movement. All of her throwing knives--plus whatever she had stolen from the kitchen--were gone from the holders at her belt.

"Jesus _Christ_ , Dem, what--how did you--" He couldn't get his mouth around the words as a panic, deeper than before, infiltrated all of his nerves. He fell to his knees beside her, throat suddenly tight. Tenderly, he turned Demencia onto her back, and she looked up at him with unfocused (more than usual) eyes. 

"I g-got shot." She sounded shaken. Her voice was hoarse, barely audible. Her head lolled to the side, eyes fluttering.

Flug pressed his lips together and got to his feet. He went to his desk and started tearing drawers open, shuffling through unfinished blueprints and rubber bands and incomplete projects and bits of metal. Where the hell was that medkit?

It hadn't been a graze, and it hadn't been a shot that had gone all the way through. It could've been worse, but it _certainly_ could've been better. While Demencia had an incredible healing factor, he wouldn't put it past whoever shot her to have poison-soaked bullets, and on top of that, if she happened to heal over the bullet, it'd cause irreversible damage. 

He finally tugged out a small metal box and left his usually well-organized desk in a sad disarray, hurrying back over to Demencia.

"You have to stay awake, Dem."

"M'kay."

"Don't fall asleep."

"M'not."

"Liar." Flug gave Demencia a stern stare before opening up the medkit. He rifled through it, made a distressed noise, and finally pulled out what he was looking for: a pair of surgical scissors. 

He wondered what Black Hat was doing. Flug had been sour since the beginning that Black Hat was leaving practically all of the fighting up to his employees, and despite all of Black Hat's attempts to assure Flug that he'd be watching and he'd step in if it ever got too rough, despite the fact that Black Hat clones were running all over the mansion, despite the security measures, the traps, their combined expertise...

Despite everything, Flug still wasn't convinced they'd make it through alive.

A short whine escaped Demencia, and Flug found himself being dragged back to the present, rather abruptly, by the feeling of Demencia's nails digging into his arm. It hurt. A lot.

"Don't. Please, Flug, I'll--I'll be fine." Her eyes were wide, her tone full of panic, as her fear-stricken expression sent a pang of heartache through Flug. She was alert suddenly, which was great, but that meant her wound was starting to heal over. Shit. 

He gently pried her fingers from his forearm and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles in a sweet caress. "You will be," he said, and the apprehension was slightly alleviated from her, as her features relaxed, but Flug squeezed her hand and continued with, "as soon as I get this bullet out. You _have_ to trust me."

Her bottom lip wobbled. It was so, _so_ rare to see Demencia so emotional like this. "Please don't, Flug," she whispered.

Flug sighed. "I have to. I can...I can give you the healing serum I made...whenever I gave it to Peregrine, I thought I didn't have enough chemicals to make more, but I did. Surprise." He released Demencia's hand to tug off his gloves, reaching for the sterile pair in the medkit, when her hand shot out again and snatched his wrist. 

Her eyes were filled with tears. "Is it..." She cleared her throat. "Is it going to hurt?"

"The serum or taking out the bullet?"

She tightened her grip, and he hissed in pain. "I don't want the serum." She shook her head. "I-I can heal fast. You can't. What if you _really_ need it?"

"You come first."

Demencia scowled. "I don't want the serum. Just...fucking _tell_ me, is it gonna hurt or not?"

Flug hesitated, then he pulled his hand back to himself. He gathered her hand in both of his, brought them to his lips underneath his bag, and pressed the back of her hand against his lips. He heard her breath hitch. "It's gonna hurt. I don't have any pain killers. But I'll be here, and you just...you can bite down on a screwdriver, if you want."

"No, please...please do it. It's only gonna get worse if we don't do anything." Her hand loosened fractionally, and Flug took that as the green light to carry on.

He lowered her hand to rest it on her stomach, and he busied himself with snapping on the pair of sterile latex gloves in the medkit. 

Snip off the section of her hoodie that surrounded the wound. Clean the partially healed over area. Pull out the scalpel. Unwrap and sanitize it. He heard Demencia whimper once and fall silent. "I need you to breathe, Dem," he told her in a surprisingly steady voice.

Then he made a neat incision along the middle of the wound, and the deep, agonized gasp followed by a muffled cry that escaped Demencia made Flug's heart feel as if it was being torn to shreds. 

He didn't like getting hurt. He could deal with it, though. He _certainly_ didn't like it whenever those he cared about were injured.

He'd kill the sorry son of a bitch that hurt Demencia, and he'd make sure it was painful.

Her chest heaved with a pattern of silent sobs and semi-forced steady breathing as Flug pulled the incision apart, dug into it, and searched in her shoulder for the bullet. His eyes narrowed. It shouldn't have gone too deep. It wasn't anywhere near bone, thankfully, but still...where was that little bastard?

_Clink_.

Relieved, he pinched the tweezers around the chunk of metal, and slowly, cautiously, pulled it out. He placed it on top of the pile of wrappings and set about dressing the wound.

As he was cleaning the area, wrapping it in bandages, Demencia was covering her face with a hand, her tears staining her cheeks. He could see her face contorting underneath her fingers, and the scientist could only helplessly watch. 

Her blood, now slowly drying on the floor, would be a bitch to clean up. His regular gloves had a little bit of blood on them too, but that was an easy fix, and anyways, it wasn't like it mattered.

He got up to put away the medkit and throw away the array of disposables, unable to think of anything comforting to say to Demencia. He wasn't sure. He didn't know what to do. Her crying didn't seem to be ceasing, and she was obviously still in pain.

So, Flug did the only rational thing he could think of when he returned to the lizard-woman hybrid on the floor.

He knelt next to her, gathered her in his arms, and held her, rocking her back and forth bit by bit and shushing her. He cradled the back of her skull and tucked her head underneath his chin.

And she cried. Demencia grabbed ahold of the front of his lab coat and sobbed until she couldn't breathe and the front of his shirt was soaked with tears and mucus. 

Flug massaged his fingers through her hair as he swallowed thickly. He could feel his own tears building, and he hated it, but if she could be this exposed, then he could too, _damn it_.

"God, Dem, I'm--" His voice cracked. "I'm so sorry. I'm _so_ sorry." 

_I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry_. The words repeated over and over in his head, and he held Demencia to himself protectively. 

_I'm sorry_. He buried his face in her hair, and she shook in his arms.

Villains were supposed to be heartless. Cruel. Unrelenting. Cold. Able to take a blow and spring back up with twice the energy they had before. All applied to Black Hat. None seemed to apply to Flug. 

So maybe he wasn't a proper villain. Maybe he wouldn't ever _be_ a proper villain. Maybe he'd just end up being smeared ink on the pages of history books, buried beneath hundreds of other despicable beings and their accomplishments.

And honestly, really, _truly_ , if Flug dug deep into himself...

He was okay with it, if it meant protecting the ones he loved. He didn't care. All that mattered at the moment was him and Demencia and _not_ dying. Just for a moment, Flug felt a bitter rage fill him, one directed at Black Hat, who was sat high and mighty in his office, watching the whole of the war go down from the safety of the monitors. 

Where were the extra weapons? The resources gifted to them from now deceased villains (perhaps heroes as well)? Hidden? Sold? Destroyed? 

Then Demencia shifted in his lap, her hand finding one of his, and his anger melted away, and he was just...in the moment. He was _there_.

It took several minutes for both of them to compose themselves. When they did, they pulled away from each other, shared a teary smile (well, as much as Flug could with his paper bag)...

...and jumped as the door burst open. Flug scrambled to his feet, hand darting to his ray gun, and Demencia bared her teeth, eyes narrowed at the intruder. Then both individuals blinked.

"5.0.5?" 

The blue bear made a noise similar to a wail and waddled over, sniffling and giving the two a watery look. His flower was droopy.

"Did the trap go okay?" 

The bear looked less than excited to answer, and after reaching up to wipe at his eyes with a clumsy paw, the bear nodded hesitantly.

Flug reached up and patted the fur between 5.0.5's eyes affectionately. "It's alright, boy. We, uh...wait. I guess the weight system worked. Nothing exploded. But how did you get in?" 

The bear glanced back at the door and mimicked a tearing motion. Flug groaned and reached up to wipe a hand over his bag in exasperation. "You tore the hinges again? That door was insurance for extra time, 5.0.5!" He stopped in his tracks when the gentle creature covered his eyes with his paws, and Flug shook his head. He ran his hand over 5.0.5's arm. "It's gonna be okay. I have other methods." 

"Full offense, Flug, but...the fact that you can talk to a _bear_ is more evidence for me to mark you down as a Disney princess."

Flug looked behind him and gave Demencia an irritated look. "Nice to see you back to normal," he muttered, and the lizard girl gave him a goofy grin and a shrug.

He rolled his eyes and strode to his desk, pulling out various weaponry from one of his drawers. He motioned the two over, and when Demencia and 5.0.5 were looking over his shoulder, he said, "I think most of this works, if not all of it, and it could certainly help when we--"

"When you, pray tell, _what_ , Doctor?"

He froze. His eyes widened, and sweat beaded at the back of his neck. 

That was a new voice. Unrecognizable. _Dangerous_.

The trio spun around, and 5.0.5 cowered behind Flug as Demencia covered her injured shoulder protectively and hissed loudly. He could tell that all she wanted to do was leap forward and tear the person's throat out, but something was holding her back. 

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_. He knew something was bound to go wrong. And here it was.

Because the traps, the explosives and mines and whatnot, all buried beneath the first few tiles within the doorway to his lab, had failed to go off.

The weight recognition system hadn't worked. It didn't work, for the entire setup was a dud.

They were cornered.

And Flug had no way out.

The person--hero, villain, who knew; an _enemy_ , nonetheless--sauntered forwards, and maybe ten more individuals followed, all bearing some smug look on their faces (save for one, who wore a look of pure terror, and did he recognize her? No, surely not; perhaps just his hope taking over).

Flug wrapped his lab coat around himself tighter to conceal the ray gun at his belt. His mind was already firing on all cylinders. "I--I'm not sure--"

" _I, I, I, I'm not s-sure_ ," the villain--only villains used that tone, as Flug recognized it well--mimicked, and her group snickered. "Cut the shit. You can drop the facade. You might as well show us the truth because, you know, dead men tell no tales."

" _What_ facade?" Buying time was something Flug was good at. His hand reached backwards, towards his desk, and he yelled then drew his hand back, as if burned. The gunshot echoed around the room, and the lead villain was lowering her gun, and was her shoulder injured as well? God damn it, she had shot his desk. Point taken; keep hands visible. To plan B, then.

"You know." She waved the muzzle of her gun rather aimlessly. "Hating Black Hat. Hating this business. Hating heroes. We _know_ you're a hero, Flug. You just gotta admit it." There were a few scattered agreements in the group. "If you do, I'll make sure to sever your spinal cord when I shoot you." The villain lowered her gun, shut one eye, aimed at Flug. Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger before making a quiet _pew_ sound, jolting her gun upwards, as if it had gone off and the rebound had moved the gun. "It's all you gotta do, Fluggy-boy. You're just doing a disservice to _real_ villains by not helping us out. You know. Real villains like _Black Hat_."

Demencia's hand was suddenly on Flug's shoulder, and he looked over to see her face tense, her brows drawn together in a tight expression of pain. It clicked, then, and Flug gritted his teeth. He locked eyes with Demencia, glanced down to her injured shoulder, and jerked his head in the direction of the woman to confirm his suspicions. The slightest nod from Demencia, and Flug felt his blood boiling in his very veins.

"Time's up, Doctor." He spun around just in time to see the villain pull the trigger, and there was a loud blast as Flug prepared for death, then a loud, hellish screech, and what looked like a mass of shadows formulated in front of the muzzle of the gun, absorbing the shot, and Flug watched in awe as it melted away into the floor.

The villain seemed as shocked as he was, but she seemed to get over it quickly. "Alright." She rolled her shoulder that wasn't wrapped in a bandage. "Killing you two is going to be harder than I thought." She scowled and retrained the gun at him, and Flug knew that her aim wouldn't be off this time. "At least FALCON is paying me well to kill you fu--"

And then, the wailing started. A blur darted down from the ceiling, cawing, and there was a falcon (fittingly enough) hooked onto the villain's face, scratching and pecking at the skin and the eyes and whatever it could reach.

Flug took a step backwards, eyes wide, as blood spilled down the villain's face to stain her shirt and the floor below. He heard Demencia give a cackle.

After a few blind, wild attempts, the villain finally grabbed ahold of the bird, tore it away, and threw it to the ground with enough force to break the bird's leg. It gave a squawk, then its form seemed to shimmer.

Oh.

It was Peregrine. 

Deja vu at its finest.

She had been the one in the group looking as if she was close to passing out from fright. Yet here she was, suffering from an injury due to her heroism.

She was convulsing on the floor, obviously in pain, and her leg was twisted at a grotesque angle. The villain, once she was done clutching at her bloodied, torn up face, shifted her attention to the girl on the floor gasping for breath.

" _You_."

The word was said with so much contempt, so much _hatred_ , it filled Flug with fear. And it wasn't even directed at him.

The villain stumbled towards Peregrine, who attempted to get up, fell back down, and resorted to holding her hands out in front of her, babbling out half apologies and incoherent pleads for her to keep her life. It was obvious that her agony was keeping her from shifting into a bird. 

"You...you little _fuck_ , thinking you can get away with helping _these_ sorry excuses of villains by weaseling your way into _my_ team--" Her left eye was swollen with blood and was obviously struggling to stay open. Her right eye was glaring down at Peregrine as her lips peeled back in a vicious snarl. "I should just _kill_ you, but that'd be doing your terrible teammates a favor, _wouldn't_ it?"

Flug slid his hand into his pocket and closed his hand around a small vial. Well...he hoped no one he cared about would need it soon.

Just before the villain reached Peregrine, just before the villain could pull her gun out and finish the girl off, Flug knelt and rolled the vial towards Peregrine.

It stopped just at her fingertips, and she had just enough time to make unsteady eye contact with Flug, eyes full of unspoken apologies and gratitude, before she picked it up, uncorked it with shaking hands, and downed the purple liquid with only slight difficulty. And again, her leg mended with perfection, and she smiled grimly at Flug.

The villain spun back around to face the scientist, her hands curling into fists. "And _now_ you're helping _her_?" She shrieked, and there was a soft fluttering of wings--gentle and comforting, like a wind on a spring day--and a pigeon shot out of the lab, leaving behind a single feather.

Flug just hoped that Peregrine would get back to her parents safely. 

Not a really "villain-y" thing to think, but he didn't care.

Advancing on them, the villain drew her other pistol--with mild difficulty--and aimed it at Flug, her grin bloodied and full of malice. Her injured eye was blank. She was likely to go blind in that one. "And now, _now_ , I have you where I want you. FALCON is going to _love_ me for this, and once you're all dead, and once I kill Black Hat with my bare _fucking_ hands, I'll be treated like a _hero_." A crazed laugh left her. "Which is ironic, considering I'm one of the most wanted villains in the whole goddamn _country_."

The villain walked towards them. The trio backed up. Flug's blood ran cold when he heard 5.0.5 hit the back wall and whimper lowly. His mind raced. What could they do?

What could _he_ do?

His hand slipped inside his coat, and it closed around the handle of the ray gun at his belt. He felt rather calmly about his fate. If Demencia, if 5.0.5, if Black Hat were all okay in the end, he was alright with this. He swallowed hard.

It was time.  
~*~  
Black Hat seemed to rather enjoy his pacing. It could almost be considered a pastime of his, perhaps a vigorous exercise routine.

He stopped and stared down at his feet, brows drawn together. His hand shot out to grip the edge of his desk to steady himself, his other hand clutching at his desk as an unearthly hiss left his lips. A sharp pain shot down his spine, then a feeling of numbness spread. His knees shook.

He was becoming weak. With every clone destroyed, another shard of himself was crushed. It would take him weeks to regenerate his lost strength. He looked up at the monitors. 

He had two clones left.

The worst wasn't even over yet. 

The thought hadn't even passed through his mind thoroughly when the clone in charge of defending 5.0.5 was annihilated, and Black Hat's knees buckled, sending him crumpling to the floor. He panted and groaned lowly, the sound akin to that of a harmed animal.

This was all his fault. He should be _down_ there, killing the rest of those _despicable_ heroes, those traitorous villains. Even if he couldn't find the strength to summon his powers, he could still do a lot of damage with a gun.

Shakily, he reached up with one hand to wipe away the sweat gathered at his brow. He slowly rose to sit back on his heels, his head craning to watch the monitors.

He found himself tracking back to just moments before the battle began, when he was conversing with Flug in his lab. When the scientist had been close to tears, shaking, and Black Hat could taste the anxiety thickening the air. 

"I'm sorry, sir," he kept saying, "I have to do this."

"Do what, Flug? Do what?" But no matter what Black Hat had said, Flug wouldn't answer, and it tore him apart.

The tears staining the front of Flug's bag had been the final straw for Black Hat, and the eldritch had wrapped his arms around Flug--albeit tentatively--and the scientist pressed his head into Black Hat's shoulder and wept, unheeding of the fact that Black Hat was trying to _comfort_ him, damn it, and Black Hat found himself wishing that he was holding the scientist under different circumstances.

He had ushered it away in disgust. It was _not_ the time to be wistful for...something. Wistful for what, exactly, Black Hat wasn't sure. He wanted-- _needed_ \--something, anything, and it filled him with a strange warmth that _frightened_ him.

Black Hat's hand reached for the edge of his desk again, to help himself up, and he winced as he tried to pull himself up.

A sharp yell emanated from him, and two rather exciting things happened then:

One, the door of his office was busted down, the wood shattering and filling the empty space of silence with its ear-splitting cracking that was followed by frenzied shouts.

Two, the final clone was shot down, and Black Hat's vision went fuzzy as an overwhelming pain scratched at his insides. He could see the trio had been cornered in the lab, and why wasn't Flug's explosives going off in the tiles? Demencia was injured, 5.0.5 was scared, Flug had given away his healing salve to that blasted girl, and they were empty handed, and Black Hat tried to melt into the floors frantically to try and reach them, because they were going to die, and it was his fault, and--

Someone kicked at his back, causing him to fall to the floor with an agonized gurgle. " _Pathetic_. What a slimy bastard, can't even fight in his own war. Makes his helpless employees do all the work. Awful."

He bared his teeth, raised his upper body on his hands, and cried out as another foot stomped into his back. There was laughter, then. "Look at this worm, groveling in his office, safe and sound, while his little loves are going to be killed." The voice was mocking, and Black Hat growled low in his throat.

There was something clipped around his throat, a button clicked, and Black Hat was dragged to his feet, thrown into a chair. He lashed out.

But he couldn't. He couldn't even raise a finger.

He was paralyzed, from the neck down, and something told him it had something to do with whatever was around his neck.

Around his neck...

His visible eye widened, and it darted to his desk. The collar that Flug had made was gone.

He had forgotten to hide it.

Something was rubbing against his wrists and ankles, and he looked down to see vines, thorny and thick and evil-looking, winding around his limbs, effectively immobilizing him. 

Not that it would've mattered anyways.

"How should we kill him?" A lady leant against the wall spoke up. 

Black Hat gagged as a particularly nasty strike to the gut had his world spinning. "I think torture sounds pretty neat." The voice paused, and it kept going, delighted, "Oh! How about we reenact every single lethal method he's used for people over the years?"

"He's a rapid healer, that won't be any fun."

"That's _exactly_ the point."

There was a chorus of pleased noises. Black Hat hung his head.

"Ah, ah, none of that."

A vine pushed underneath his chin, almost tenderly, and lifted his head so he could meet a smug-looking man's gaze. "But I think we should make him watch his employees die first, don't you think?"

He felt his breath hitch, and his eye wandered back over to the monitors. Flug's hand was tucked inside of his lab coat. Demencia was clinging to Flug's side, her teeth bared as a wild expression filled her face. 5.0.5 was switching between growling and whining pathetically.

There was nothing they could do.

"Aw, I think he's upset." The man in front of him pouted, and Black Hat jolted as a shock of electricity bolted through his body. His back arched violently, and the sickening smell of ozone filled his nostrils. He was so damn dizzy. Why wouldn't it stop? He never imagined it ending this way. God. 

What was there left that he could even _do_?

Shuddering, Black Hat looked away from the group of heroes and villains, and his lips moved without sound.

"What was that?" The man cooed. "If you're begging for your life, it's not happening. You've yet to watch your darlings die!"

"I _said_ ," Black Hat forced out, his voice rough, "spare them."

The man hesitated. "I'm sorry?"

Black Hat scowled, and he directed his attention back to the man. "Are you _deaf_?" He spat bitterly. "Spare my employees. Kill me instead. They--" His words were hung up on a sudden influx of emotion, and he'd die just from the abhorrent feeling of _sentiment_ , but he pressed onwards. "They've done nothing but followed orders. Let them go. I don't care what you do to me. Just let them live. Spare them."

The man blinked, straightened, and crossed his arms. Unimpressed, then. "This should make killing them all the more fun," was all he replied with, and Black Hat lurched forwards in his binds, his teeth bared viciously.

" _Let. Them. Go_." 

Black Hat was pleased to hear that he could still drop his voice to hell-levels deep, and he was glad to see several individuals drop to their knees, clutching at bloody noses or ears or eyes or a combinations of all three.

The man in front of him seemed to not be affected, and he wanted to reply with something when a radio at his hip crackled to life.

"Alpha Falcon to Eagle, I've received intel that you've captured Black Hat. Over."

The man pulled the radio out and held it to his mouth. "Eagle to Alpha, that's true. Permission to kill, over."

There was a pause. The next words shocked everyone in the room. Black Hat's collar shocked him literally, leaving him writhing in his binds and wheezing.

"No." Then there was a smile in the voice of who was speaking, and Black Hat's eye shot open in horror. He recognized the voice. "Leave him to me." 

He recognized the voice. Wave after wave of fury coursed through him. 

"Black Hat. Darling." There was a tsking. "Oh, your front yard is a mess." A humming filled the radio, gleeful and cheerful. Black Hat snarled as he saw the figure sauntering up the sidewalk to his house through the monitors.

The cloak concealed nothing. He knew. 

Through the monitor, the white wings stretched out and glittered in the sunlight, and they swept the air as their owner took the time to look into the camera.

Through the darkness of the hood of the cloak, there was a sweet smile. 

"I've got you just where I want you." The figure raised a hand, tugged down the hood.

"Oh my _god_." The man in front of Black Hat took a step back in surprise. "It's the _mayor_?"

"Of _course_ it's Angela, you dense idiot!" Black Hat yelled. A melodic giggle filled the radio.

"Don't insult my workers, Black Hat. They've done a lovely job of doing their share so far."

"I--but--she's a hero, and she--doesn't this go against the code--"

There was a clatter as the radio fell to the floor, and the front of Black Hat was splattered with blood as a crooked dagger sprouted from the man's neck. He gave Black Hat one last look of surprise before falling backwards to the floor, twitching and bleeding. He was dead.

"Vine, tell Merlot to stand down." Angela's voice was sharp. "The employees are _mine_."

"Yes, ma'am." The lady leaning against the wall pointed at Black Hat, and the vines around his limbs tightened. He glared at her, and she shrugged. She left the office in a run.

"Oh, Black Hat. You naive soul. Do you even have a soul? Shame that you don't. Heaven's a lovely place." Angela's words held no effect on Black Hat, though he could tell the remaining people in the room were hooked on her every word. He was sure it had something to do with her _heavenly powers_ , or something equally as stupid, that she had dubbed herself. "It would've been so much easier, so much more painless, if you would've just thrown the white flag at the beginning of all of this."

Black Hat curled his lip, and he spat something out in a language that was mainly growls. One person melted on the spot in a wail. His collar shocked him again.

"I know eldritch too, you slippery thing." Her voice was disgustingly saccharine. "And that wasn't very nice, what you just called me."

"It's only the truth," he panted out, and Angela laughed again. 

His eye tracked her movements as she advanced into the foyer, stepping around bodies and dried pools of blood. "And I admire your strive to present the truth as much as possible. There's nothing I hate more than liars."

Black Hat strained against the vines, gritting his teeth. "As if you're not a liar yourself, you mean," he retorted.

"I never said that. Now you're just putting words in my mouth." Angela reached behind herself, and she produced a bow fitted with an arrow, aimed at some unfortunate being, and released. The arrow must've hit its target, for Angela beamed in the direction of where the arrow had flown. She continued to the living room, and Black Hat watched, enraptured, as her figure transferred from one monitor to the next. She was getting closer to the trio. 

"It's such a pity, killing your employees." Another arrow produced, another _thwang_ of the bow's string, another target eliminated. In the lab, the villain who had cornered his party of employees was hesitating to take the shot. She looked as if she was listening to someone, perhaps that Vine character. "They seemed useful, proficient. But, ultimately, their blood is on _your_ hands, Black Hat."

Black Hat curled his hands into fists. "You're a liar," he said lowly.

"You could've stopped all this from happening. Where's the extra provisions those villains had given you?"

"No."

"Why did you decide to cower in your office, waiting for the worst to blow over just so you could sweep in at the last moment to save the day for your poor handmaidens?"

"Stop it." The arms of the chair creaked as he strained against the vines binding him.

"Is it because you doubt yourself? Is it because you know that you'd be beaten this one time, and it'd be over, and you didn't want to blame yourself?"

"I said, _stop it_."

"I don't think that's it because your pride hasn't abandoned you yet. No, no. I think it's something much worse than that; to you, at least." Angela was sauntering to the lab at that point, dragging her fingers along walls and admiring the decor idly. 

Black Hat shook. "Don't," he warned.

"Or what?" Angela stared into the camera that was near the lab, and she offered another soft smile. She shook her head in disappointment. "I think I know why you'd rather risk the lives of your employees than get your hands dirty.

"I know it, and you know it, too. It's because, deep down, in whatever heart or soul or _thing_ you have--" She reached behind herself and drew another arrow, nocking it, "--you care about them. And you're afraid of that."

"You can't prove it."

"Oh, but I can." Her smile took a cruel edge to it. "Which is going to make killing them all the more satisfying."

Then she aimed at the camera and released the arrow, and Black Hat jolted forwards in his chair with a loud, " _No_!" as the monitor went kaput. The camera in the lab was still intact, and Black Hat felt himself growing sick at the realization that that camera would be left alone.

He was going to watch Flug, Demencia, 5.0.5, all of them, die at the hands of good for nothing heroes. He dropped his head, his eyes unseeing, as a boiling rage scraped through his body. 

One of the heroes in the room chuckled. "He's mad. Kinda cool to see whenever he's not about to rip your throat out."

"Yknow, Boss never said that we couldn't mess with him, beat him around a little," suggested another, and Black Hat tensed slightly as the soft patter of footprints surrounded him. He could see the shoes in his peripherals.

A hand closed around his throat above his collar. He was forced to look up at whoever was holding him. The villain in front of him smirked. "It's been a long time coming for your fall, Black Hat. FALCON and Angela have done well to get us here." Their fingers tightened slightly around Black Hat's neck. "Villains aren't going to have to rely on you anymore. We'll be able to do what we need to do without you looming over us."

He gave the villain a blank stare. "You're _truly_ an idiot if you think Angela is going to spare you," was all he said.

The villain scowled and spat in his face. Black Hat didn't react. "Of course she is. Why do you think you know more about Angela than we do?" The nails of the villain dug into the column of his neck. "If I were Angela, I'd torture your employees. I'd make the human last as long as possible, make the girl love her torture over and over again until she's numb to it all then introduce something new. I'd make the bear into a nice fur rug. You know, maybe skin it alive, make your scientist watch as his creation screams. 

"Can a bear scream? Who knows. I guess we'd find out, wouldn't we?"

The villain cackled, and Black Hat could feel something coursing through him. Something dark, primal, crawling from the very pits of hell to grant him one last burst of power.

He wasn't sure that he'd reform within the next century on Earth after this.

He didn't care, though. He could see Angela clearing a path through the crowd of heroes and villains (or what was left, anyways, and what the hell was wrong with Flug?) to reach the trio, where Demencia and 5.0.5 were standing protectively in front of the crumpled form of Flug. 

And, suddenly, he was overwhelmed with the desire to protect and defend what was _his_. An iron taste filled his mouth, and he felt a dastardly grin stretch across his mouth. He laughed. The sound was that of nails on a chalkboard. The villain's expression wavered, and their grip on his neck loosened slightly.

"I guess the question that you should be asking yourself is--" He snapped his fingers, and the collar on his neck popped off, the vines around his form burning away, and he lurched forwards to dig his claws into the villain's eyes, "--can _you_ scream?"

Oh, scream they did. His grin grew positively evil as they howled, blood trickling from their punctured eyes to stain his suit. He elongated his claws and swiped them to the left to cleave the villain's skull in two. The dead villain fell to the floor. Black Hat's form shifted, and tentacles, mouths, eyes, thorns, even various weaponry sprouted across his body, and he relished in the wails and loud sobs of horror from the heroes and villains that were left in his office. 

" _You were all morons for betraying me and believing Angela_ ," he snarled, the mouths crisscrossing his body echoing the phrase in a hundred different languages, and his tone was deep enough to shake the room.

His office was covered in blood and bone and brain matter and organs in a matter of seconds, and Black Hat turned his attention towards the monitor. Angela seemed to have heard him.

Good.

He roared, shattering windows, and he melted into the shadows, racing for the lab.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my GOD im so sorry guys! this was WAY overdue, and i am VERY sorry for having lied to you (two weeks? really?? ha!), but school has been taking a lot out of me on top of my recent irl issues. but i promise that i have NOT forgotten about this fic, and im NOT abandoning it. there’s an ending planned for sure, but idk how long it’ll take for me to post it. before i forget, however, i want u guys to know that im so thankful of the kudos, so thankful of the comments, so thankful for all of the hits (almost 2000? holy shit!), and most of all, so thankful for your patience. thank you so damn much. there’s death and gore in this one, so be prepared for that.  
> any and all mistakes are mine. i own nothing except the plot (holes) and my characters. without further ado, enjoy!

"Stay back!" Flug's voice was a mere warble, ghosting up from behind his bag, and his hand tightened further on the handle of the gun. Still not shown, still hidden safely away. A small part of him wished that this would end peacefully, they'd all be okay, they'd all chase off the offenders from their property, go to the kitchen, have a cup of coffee, laugh about the day, and spend the rest of the night watching awful films; he wished that the following day, all they had to do would be clean up the mess and get rid of the bodies.

But he knew that wasn't even near the ballpark of being feasible. 

This was okay, though. Demencia and 5.0.5 would be okay. Black Hat would be okay.

Merlot was advancing on them with every threatening step towards them, her features etched with misery and fury, her good arm raised with the silver pistol glinting dangerously in the light of the lab. Demencia and 5.0.5 both growled at Merlot in unison, and the villain didn't even waver. Flug tugged the gun from his jacket, and he aimed it at the group of villains. He took in a deep breath. He had to steady his hand. One wrong shot, and they'd all die.

"Demencia. 5.0.5. Get behind me."

"Wha-? Flug, you're stupid. Don't say that," Demencia protested, and her voice was ladened with worry.

"Didn't you learn a _long_ time ago to not argue with me?" Flug turned his head to give the lizard-girl hybrid a stern glare. " _Get. Behind. Me_."

"Flug--"

" _Now_ , Dem. Please." He couldn't stand how heartbroken she sounded, just from saying his name.

He flicked a switch on the gun as soon as he knew Demencia and 5.0.5 were behind him a safe distance away. The safety was off. 

No turning back.

" _Nothing_ can save you now, you worthless, no good--" Merlot suddenly stopped several feet away, hesitation causing the muzzle of her gun to dip slightly, and she whipped around to snarl at one of her teammates.

"What the _hell_ do you mean, I've got to stand down?" She snapped. "I've got them right where I..." She hesitated. "Oh. Boss is here? Those were Boss's orders? Well I--"

Flug squeezed his eyes shut just as he pulled the trigger on the gun. Yells filled the room. He heard Demencia scream his name and 5.0.5 let out a baleful howl.

An intense heat hit him, and he flew backwards to hit the floor, his head cracking against the tile. He slid to a stop, his back feeling burnt from the friction and the rest of his body filled to the brim with senseless pain. He was sure that portions of his clothing had melted into his skin. The gun clattered somewhere else, smoking and charred and useless. 

But it had done its job.

With his last fractions of consciousness, he witnessed bodies crumbling to ash, Merlot being shielded on the floor by the woman that had warned her to save the trio for _Boss_ , the remaining few parting the way for...for...

Someone. Who was that?

God. His head hurt.

He closed his eyes, and his head fell backwards with a soft _clunk_ as darkness blessedly spread over him.  
~*~  
" _Flug_!" The lab filled with a bright light, and Demencia turned in horror to advert her eyes from the supernova. She buried her face in 5.0.5's fur, and she trembled until the yelling, the noise--so much noise, so much--ceased.

The bear seemed to gasp, and Demencia hesitantly looked up to see Flug curled on the floor. There were piles of ash resting where the group of villains had been moments before. Merlot was on the floor, covered by another villain. Only a few survivors remained, but all were in an awful shape. Nearby, a charcoaled device sizzled. The carcass of Flug's gun.

The mini death ray.

Demencia flung herself forward, falling to her knees next to Flug. 5.0.5 hurried next to her and tenderly gathered Flug to lay against his chest, his worried whines echoing in the room.

"Flug?" His bag and clothing were singed. The holes in his clothing showed raw, pink skin—burns, surely third degree. His breathing was shallow, which told Demencia that he was alive (barely). She reached out and brushed a hand tenderly against the side of his bag (the edges of which were beginning to curl, blackened and exposing scarred, trembling lips). "C'mon, Flug," she whispered, her voice breaking, "wake up. _Please_. I-I'll never mess with your equipment again. I swear. God." She ducked her head, and she gathered Flug's hand into hers. "Please. Wake up."

But his breathing remained shallow. He didn't stir.

" _Fuck_. You don't happen to have any more death traps up your sleeves, do you?" The hostile voice of Merlot rang out, and Demencia's gaze snapped up to study the villain staggering to her feet. In response, Demencia bared her teeth again, a low growl building in her throat. She stood in front of 5.0.5 and Flug protectively, her hands curling into claws. Yet she didn't move, as memories--being stolen and beaten, being shot by none other than Merlot--flickered through her mind. Every nerve screamed at her to peel the skin right off of Merlot's face (what was left, anyways), but she couldn't move.

"Not much for conversation, are you?" Merlot bent and snatched her gun up, cocked it, and aimed at Demencia. "Shame."

Instead of fighting, instead of sprinting forwards and tearing Merlot's eyes out, Demencia bowed her head.

Perhaps this was what she deserved after years of crime.

Karma. It always came back around.

A sharp sound of metal hitting the tile floor brought Demencia's attention back to the present, and she looked up to see Merlot staring first down at her gun then at the villain who had the genius idea of slapping the weapon out of Merlot's hand. "What are you _doing_ , Vine?" 

"Boss said to _leave them_." The other villain scowled at Merlot. 

And, amazingly, Merlot didn't argue. Apparently the boss's word was the word of god, and she gave Demencia one final, toxic glare before bending to snatch her gun up and backing up towards the door again.

Demencia lowered her shoulders slightly, and she looked behind herself to Flug and 5.0.5. She creased her eyebrows, giving the bear a hopeful look.

5.0.5 shook his head with a pained whine, and the lizard girl felt tears well up in her eyes, blurring her vision. She could still see Flug's chest rising and falling in quick flits of needed air, but he hadn't so much as groaned since the recoil of the death ray.

The bear buried his face on top of Flug's bag, the paper crinkling loudly in the sudden silence, and he sniffled, great globs of tears soaking Flug's bag.

Demencia, one sluggish step at a time, went to them, and she fell to her knees next to Flug. She clutched at his arm, shook once, twice.

Nothing.

She hiccuped and slapped Flug's arm, frustration crossing her face. "God _damn_ it, Flug, you stupid idiot. Why did you have to do that?" She dropped her head to rest on Flug's shoulder, the tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. "And now w-we're gonna die, and you killed yourself just to buy us unneeded time, and...and..." Her fingers clawed at the sleeve of Flug's lab coat, and she let out a quiet sob. "And boss is gonna see us die, and we're never gonna see each other again."

5.0.5 ran his paw as comfortingly as he could down Demencia's hair, the gentle giant trying and failing to hide his own cries. 

"Pathetic." A new voice, sweet as honey, cold as ice, swept into the room with the force of a hurricane. The lab door slammed shut, and Demencia wearily picked her head up to stare at the newcomer.

Ah. The mayor. Cool. When did she have a bow and an arrow quiver, again?

Oh. Demencia's eyes widened fractionally as her mind clicked the pieces together.

She wasn't there to help them. Quite the opposite.

"Can't even put up a proper fight for me whenever your lives are on the line." Angela tutted gently, idly fingering through the many arrows still left in her quiver. "What happened to the scientist? Did his little plan backfire? How awful, indeed. I'd almost feel sorry for you all, if it weren't for the many, _many_ atrocities you've committed in the eyes of the law over the years."

That only confirmed Demencia's suspicions. "You're downright slimy," was all she could think of to spit at Angela. The words seemed to fly at the winged hero, but Angela batted them away as if they were just a pesky gnat. She actually had the gall to laugh, too.

"Oh, sweetheart. If only you knew." She made a pleased noise, pulled out a particularly clean golden arrow, notched it. Angela's wings stretched out behind her, effectively shielding the rest of FALCON ( _the rest_ being, quite literally, all who was left alive, mainly heroes) from sight. They gleamed ominously in the artificial lights of the lab. "Any last words? Don't worry, this'll kill the bear, too. If it's humane or not...we'll just have to see."

Oftentimes, the public always had the general idea of "heroes were good, villains were bad". Not far from the truth, but the everyday citizen didn't question heroes' motives. And sometimes, their motives could end up being worse than the villains themselves. 

This was a prime example.

Demencia kept her empty gaze on Angela until it was almost uncomfortable, then she petted 5.0.5's arm, trying her head to give him a small smile. The bear, whimpering, nodded and set Flug down so the scientist was resting against the back wall. Demencia staggered to her feet, and she stood tall next to 5.0.5, their bodies covering Flug away from the crowd. Her smile turned grim; 5.0.5 covered his eyes with his paws, shaking somewhat awful. "Yeah. I got some." She crossed her arms. The bandages around her shoulder creased, emphasizing the blood that had dried on the previously pristine white fabric. "Fuck you guys."

Angela couldn't stop the snarl that built on her face, and Demencia cackled. The winged hero lifted the bow, drew the arrow back, and took aim. Demencia leant her head against 5.0.5, humming a melody she often sang to annoy Flug but calm 5.0.5. Slowly, surely, the bear stopped quivering, and she stroked the bear's arm lovingly. "We'll be okay, fivey. Alright? I'll...I'll see you on whatever's on the other side. I think. Flug's gonna be there, too, and maybe Black Hat. Then we'll be okay." She planted a kiss on the blue fur. Those words felt so, so empty in her mouth. Demencia knew this was the end of them all. But she hated seeing 5.0.5 so scared. She hated feeling so defenseless. She hated knowing that Angela was going to win. Most of all, she hated Angela, she hated FALCON, she hated that she blamed everything, all of _this_ , on Black Hat when she knew damn well it was everyone’s equal fault (except, really, 5.0.5). Then she hated that despite all of that, she knew that she would absolutely kill and die for Flug, for 5.0.5, for Black Hat. 

It was almost funny, in a way. She _had_ killed for them. 

And now she’d die for them. 

The string of the bow creaked from the tension. It was deathly loud. "I love you." One arrow, one shot. Two dead, leaving Flug to be taken care of once Demencia and 5.0.5 were gone.

Demencia just hoped they granted Flug a kinder, more painless death than what had been granted to herself and 5.0.5.

She closed her eyes. There was a distant growling, almost as if from hell itself, and that might've given Angela a brief pause. Demencia thought none of it. Perhaps it was the pipes.

There was a thick, sickening sense of dread that filled Demencia, then. Demencia didn't want to die. Not really. She was afraid of the pain and what came after. Light? Darkness? Nothing? Maybe she'd come back as a guardian angel for someone. 

Tears filled the backs of her eyelids (where had they all come from? So many) She had to keep it together. For 5.0.5. For Flug. For Black Hat. She'd die an honorable death. 

The sharp _twang_ of the bow's string snapping through the air, the arrow whistling devilishly, was the last thing Demencia heard.

She tightened her hold slightly on 5.0.5, face scrunching up, awaiting the blinding, agonizing pain of the arrow. 

Instead, it was as if a blizzard had swept through her, and from under her eyelids, she saw the room abruptly darken. She snapped her eyes open, and a ground-shaking roar split the room, causing her to grit her teeth and reach up to clutch at her head. 5.0.5 let out a terrified wail.

But she recognized the roar.

" _Get behind me_." A thousand voices swept through the room, and soft tentacles and phantom limbs pushed Demencia and 5.0.5 back to rest against the wall next to Flug. Demencia knelt next to Flug again and gathered the scientist to her chest, gazing in front of her in horror and awe. The scientist, meanwhile, gave a weak cough and clutched tightly to Demencia's wrist, his body jolting slightly.

She knew it.

She knew, deep down, that they hadn't been abandoned. She knew that Flug would be okay, and she knew that Flug would wake up, because boss wouldn't let that.

It damn well wasn't Angela, either. Her boss. _Their_ boss.

The writhing, thundering mass of mouths and eyes and roiling darkness was Black Hat.

And he was protecting them.  
~*~  
Black Hat would've traded all of his money just to get a portrait of Angela's face as soon as he reformed from the shadows to absorb her arrow. It was priceless.

He let out a hellish snarl as the arrow pierced his skin, somewhere just to the left of his shoulder blade (if such a thing existed in this form). He was beyond his humanoid form, forgoing any thought of resembling one. He towered above everyone in the room, a tumbling, jumbled mass of shadow, tentacles, narrowed eyes, snarling mouths, claws. 

Every bit of Black Hat's focus was funneled into one goal.

He'd kill Angela for what she and her little _crew_ had done to him, his mansion, his employees. Just seeing Flug in the state he was in was enough to fuel the fire. A tentacle wrapped around the hilt of the arrow and yanked it out, his teeth baring. The arrow fell to the floor, and Black Hat stepped on it, shattering the item.

" _Get behind me_ ," he instructed Demencia and 5.0.5, voice booming, making it obvious that they weren't to follow, no matter what happened, though he tried to make himself sound less harsh. He knew already was his fate was. He didn't want to say it out loud. 

It frightened him.

Ever the composed, Angela seemed to recover quickly. She took a couple of steps back from the mass radiating hatred that was Black Hat, reaching behind herself to grab another arrow. "Well then. I see that my guards have failed," she deadpanned. 

Black Hat only growled lowly, taking a step forward. All of Angela's remaining minions scrambled back; the winged hero stayed put. Black Hat hated to admit it, but Angela had guts.

She wouldn't for long.

"You seem to still think that you have a chance at winning this battle, Black Hat." Angela tilted her head and again notched another arrow, pulled back on the arrow, and squinted her eye shut to aim at Black Hat. "It's over." She released the arrow, and it grazed the side of his cheek (well, where he cheek would be). "Your employees are going to die. _You're_ going to die. It's no use."

" _You say this as if I don't already know_."

Angela laughed. He stalked forward, claws dragging over the tile of the floor with haunting shrieks. Saliva dripped from his many mouths. Oh, how wonderful it felt to just revert back to his early eldritch form. And how bittersweet it was to realize what would happen afterwards.

"Then why try?" She finally started to back up, the FALCON members running out of the lab as she made her way towards the door. "You're just dragging out the inevitable."

" _Perhaps_." Black Hat paused. " _But if I can take you down with me, then there's two less villains in the world_." He smiled cruelly at Angela's expression. " _Isn't that what you've always wanted? Dead villains? You can deny it all you want to, but the only angelic thing about you is your name and your false identity. Admit it, Angela_." He cackled, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. " _You're a villain_."

Behind him, he could hear the hushed and worried whispers of Demencia, the quiet confirmations of Flug, the gentle sobs of 5.0.5. He could see that Angela was trying to look around him to get a clear shot to the group, and the eldritch manipulated the shadows to cover the group. They didn't notice it, but Angela couldn't find them.

Angela made a displeased noise and continued her pace of walking backwards to escape the lab. "Lucifer was an angel before he was struck down into hell, you know," she responded, sounding bored, but Black Hat could see that his comment had affected her; the edges of her smile seemed forced. "And you know that I've only ever wanted the best for this city."

" _You and I both know that's a lie that's clear as day_." He watched her, expression gleeful, as he allowed Angela to finally back out into the hallway to track back into the great hall. " _You've only ever wanted what was best for you, no matter who you killed or what you destroyed_." The door to the lab slammed shut behind him, and the lock slid into place.

They’d be safe.

He gave another bone shattering roar, and he melted into the shadows again, just as Angela turned on her heel and sprinted, catching up with her group members. Fragments of him sped along the walls, gaining power and speed as he dragged the remaining shadows with him to build himself up. 

" _There's no reason for you to fight me if you know what'll happen_." The fragments slipped silently into the great hall, in front of Angela and her crew, swirling together to meld back into the beastly form of Black Hat. " _You're not making it out alive, and that's a promise_."

Angela pulled another arrow and notched it, and he noticed that her hands were shaking, although very minutely. "Not if I can help it." She pulled the arrow back, took aim...

And let it fly directly into the eye socket of a straggling villain, who had been hiding behind a sofa. She fell over, dead. Black Hat remembered that she had, at one point, robbed every bank within a thirty mile radius of the city by herself with nothing other than a pistol and some pantyhose. 

Damn shame.

"You see, Black Hat, you were right, actually." She let her bow drop slightly as she stared up at Black Hat, her face entirely neutral. Behind Angela, her minions were struggling to their feet, all giving Angela looks ranging from surprise to sudden anger. She took a step back. "I'm not a villain. I'm certainly not a bad person at all. In fact, over half the city would agree with me on this.

"But the thing is...it's tiring, Black Hat, dealing with villains. It's tiring trying to help them better themselves when all they want to do it pillage and burn the spaces we've built for them. That girl who came to me with the idea for a villain rehabilitation center? I turned her down. Not because I'm... _against_ the idea; because villains are all the same."

"Uh, boss? Is everything okay?" Asked a woman to Angela's left. Black Hat recognized her as the woman under the alias of Vine. She had been the one to restrain Black Hat. 

In response to Vine, Angela buried an arrow in her skull.

"They don't want help, and they don't want _to_ help. So I figured, 'why waste the time and energy on villains? In fact, why waste time on the sympathizers too?' And then it hit me." A small smile grew on her face, and she turned to face her group. Her wings shimmered in the little light that existed in the manor, sinister and stained red at the tips from all of the blood that had been drawn that day. "FALCON. I needed help. I needed to make sure that I'd be able to stay in power."

Black Hat lowered himself to the ground, stalking forward. The hardwood floors underneath him complained, and every step he took shook the walls. Deep scars jaggedly made their way into the floor. Angela didn’t back up. “ _And that worked out wonderfully for you, didn’t it_?”

“It did, certainly.” Angela smirked slightly at the sound of gurgling and a body hitting the floor. One of the heroes of the group had been stabbed by someone else. “Once you and your minions and the villains and their sympathizers are gone, the city will be complete. We’ll be whole again.”

Black Hat hissed, frothing at the mouth, as Merlot unloaded her final bullets into the undulating eldritch form looming over them. The metal melted and dripped to the floor. Scorch marks from the melted bullets would forever be in the wood.

Angela wrinkled her nose a little in Merlot’s direction. “Honestly, so _impatient_. It was difficult, working with villains and not wanting to off them from the moment they stepped into my office at the city hall.”

Merlot’s eyes widened, and she whipped around to face Angela, gobsmacked. “ _Excuse_ me?” Her voice was strained, her anger palpable.

Angela tilted her head. “Allow me to enlighten you further.”

Merlot fell to the floor, blood and brain matter splattering. The tip of the arrow that had pierced her forehead glittered at the back of her skull, barely able to be seen among the now deceased villain.

“FALCON’s insignia is rather simple to understand.” Behind Angela, the last of the heroes—the most powerful, it seemed—stood tall, brandishing their weapons and scowling. There were at least twenty. Black Hat’s eyes flickered back and forth as he surveyed them with a quiet air of indifference. “FALCON is the bird. A woman—Bains, perhaps, but my memory could be failing me—inspired me to pick her little quirk to represent us. I had always been rather jealous of her ability to become a bird. But I digress. The common bird of prey feeds on the weak, the underdeveloped, the slow. Sometimes, they prefer the challenge of something a bit quicker or stronger, like, say, a hare or maybe even another bird.” Black Hat’s back arched, the spines along his backbone raising in warning, as he growled low in his throat at Angela’s empty smile. “The villains, their sympathizers and their friends, are the snake.

“We pick them off, one by one, until all that’s left are the people like us, the people who are willing to sacrifice one life for one hundred lives. Doesn’t that make so much more sense, to cut the threat off early and to prevent any further harm to us? To others? To the world?” Black Hat reached out to swipe at Angela, claws extended, and she leaped back at the last moment. He, instead, gutted one of the other heroes. That hero fell to their knees, coughed up blood, and fell face first into their own pool of blood.

“There wasn’t a chance that I’d be able to come to this house without an explanation. If it went public that I paid a visit here, to the infamous Black Hat’s household, just to kill him and his employees, there’d be outcry! There’d be riots in the street and blood on my hands.” Angela extended her wings, and with one great sweep of them, she was airborne. The wings beat the air around them, and she was nearly touching the ceiling with the top of her head. She reached behind herself to draw another arrow and pulled it onto the bow. “My assistant was too stupid to realize that the letter I had written myself was in my handwriting and was addressed to myself. She was too stupid to realize I had a couple of members of FALCON send me that care package with evidence that Demencia had been, at the very least, beaten around a bit. She was too stupid to realize that everything was strung together so very delicately, and one wrong move on my part or even on hers, bless her gentle soul, could cause the whole thing to collapse.

“But it didn’t because I was so careful and precise.” The arrow shrieked through the air, and Black Hat let out an unearthly howl as it dug into the flesh of his limb. “And I’m not about to let my guard down.” Her eyes flashed. “Your employees are dying. You’re losing control. Give up.” 

The heroes were beginning to swarm around him, and Black Hat laughed. It caused one hero to fall to his knees and scream as madness took ahold of his mind. “ _Only if you do first_.”

He ducked his head to snap his teeth at someone, and they closed around the upper half of a young woman. He spat that half out, the metallic taste of blood spreading on his tongue, and he gave Angela a challenging glare.

In response, she huffed and merely notched another arrow.  
~*~  
“God. _Flug_. Flug, I swear I’m never going to bother you again, I-I’ll never mess with you lab equipment or try to take off your bag o-or—“

“Dem.” He reached up to weakly wipe away one of the tears silently slipping down her face. She looked surprised at the fact that she was crying, and Demencia reached up to rub her face stubbornly, her brows drawing together. “Dem, it’s okay. I’m okay.” His voice was weak, and he could barely move—holy shit, that had hurt; he was incredibly lucky that he didn’t have any visibly broken bones, even more so that he was alive—but he was awake and talking. That was good.

“God. _God_.” Demencia pressed her forehead to Flug’s, and she shook slightly. “If you ever do that again...something as stupid as _sacrificing yourself_...fucking _Christ_...Flug, I swear to Jesus himself, I-I’ll—“

“You’ll what? Kill me?” He croaked out. She barked out a laugh, and she reached for his hand. Demencia squeezed it tightly. 

5.0.5 was curled around the two of them, Flug resting back against the soft fur on his belly, Demencia leaning against his legs. He struggled to adjust himself, and he cringed and froze. His hand drifted to clutch at his side. Ah. He wasn’t quite out of the woods yet, then. If his ribs weren’t broken, then they were bruised, if he was lucky. They were likely cracked.

Concern flashed across Demencia’s face, and she scooted closer to hover her hand over the side that Flug was clutching. She drew her hand back after a second thought. “Flug...can I...?”

“It’s fine. I’m okay,” he insisted; his voice was strained, and he cursed himself for not being able to hide his pain. 

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a fucking wuss, Flug. Let me see.” Her hand knocked his away, and she pulled Flug’s shirt up with a surprising tenderness that he’d never experienced before. Her fingers spread against his ribs, feather light, and her sharp intake of breath was all Flug needed to hear. “You’re so... _bruised_ ,” she said quietly. The lightest bit of pressure was exerted from her fingertips, and Flug yelped then shined away from her touch. That hurt. A lot.

Demencia pressed her lips together into a thin line, and she got to her feet. “I’ll be back.” Flug watched as she wandered to his desk and pulled the drawers out, digging through them with a pensive expression. “Where’s your medkit? Y’know, the one you used earlier to pull the bullet out of me.”

“Not the desk. Underneath the counter, next to the door.” He paused. “Be careful. The traps I set may still be active.”

“If they didn’t go off before, they won’t go off now.” She rolled her eyes. “Flaw in the design much?”

“Shut up.”

Demencia laughed, and she shut the drawer she had been searching to start towards the door.

Except she couldn’t. She reached out, pushed against something, frowned. Flug watched as she pushed, then shoved, then tried to break into the _something_ with her shoulder.

No luck.

It was as if a brick wall had been constructed, but they could still see through it, if a bit darker than usual. The door was visible, not far away, yet they couldn’t reach it.

“Shit!” Demencia kicked at the invisible wall and snarled. “Are you serious right now? I just need some god damn bandages!”

The floor rumbled with a low roar that sounded outside of the lab. It was faint, but it made the lights flicker. Nervously, Demencia stepped back, and she turned her attention back to Flug and shrugged timidly. “Sorry, Flug-a-boo. Guess you’ll have to...” She trailed off, her eyes wandering. Flug followed her gaze to find that she was staring at the small cot he harbored in the lab when he needed to sleep and couldn’t make it to his room (which was often). It was halfway between their side of the wall of shadows, the other half residing on their opposite side of the wall. “Hold on a sec, Flugs.” Her voice was pensive.

She got back up again, and the lizard-girl hybrid went to the cot. She reached down, lightly tapped the cotton sheet covering the small bed, and, deciding that it was safe to pick up, tugged on it. It looked as if the sheet wouldn’t budge, held in place by the stubborn shadowy mass, but Flug could see it start to slip. In awe, he watched as Demencia, the muscles on her arm twitching and the cords on her neck sticking out as she gritted her teeth, slowly but surely pulled the sheet free. Somehow, by some miracle, it didn’t rip.

He knew Demencia was strong, but _Jesus_. 

“Here.” She approached Flug again, who was struggling to continue sitting up against the softness of 5.0.5, and tore off a strip of fabric with her teeth. Demencia motioned for Flug to lift his shirt—he obliged with a wince—and she began binding his ribs. “Aaand done! Look, just like a present,” she cooed, all sharp-toothed grin, and Flug looked down to see that she had finished the job with a small bow.

Flug gave her a half-lidded, annoyed glare; it was halfhearted. “Thanks. I love it.”

Demencia laughed, a genuine giggle that Flug hadn’t heard for weeks, it felt like, and he found himself unable to stop his own smile. 

Maybe they’d be okay.

“We can get you all fixed up when _that_ headache,” She motioned towards the shadows blocking their exit (or someone’s entrance), “is gone. I’m sorry I can’t do much better than that.”

“It’s alright, Dem. It’s my own fault for not having any pain killers down there.” He gave her a suspicious look. “Unless you ate them all.”

“What? No! Dude, I only do the _hard_ stuff. Ibuprofen is a hell of a drug.”

They giggled a little more over that, and Demencia opened her mouth to say something when the lights flickered again, dimming for a bit longer, before returning to their original brightness. 5.0.5 lifted his head, whined quietly, and pushed himself closer to Flug. The scientist only had a moment to prepare before the bear practically crushed him into his belly, and Flug yelled in pain. 

The ground shook, a deep, rumbling screech of agony filtering through the door of the lab. Demencia wobbled on her feet, windmilled her arms to regain balance, and gave Flug a wide eyed stare. Fear was creeping into her features. “Flug, that sounded like Bl—“

The building shuddered. Tiles cracked. The ceiling started to shed bits of itself onto the floor below. The lights dimmed again.

One last roar, then a distant boom.

Then the lights failed. They were awash in sudden darkness. Heat was sweeping towards them, and it was then, Flug realized, through his haze of pain and 5.0.5’s frightened wails, that it was suddenly, hauntingly quiet.

Demencia’s voice piped up, shaky and wholly, irreversibly, frightened. “Flug. Flug, oh my god. Th-the wall...it’s _gone_. We...can get out.”

Bile rose in the back of Flug’s throat. He had a feeling that, once they were through that door, once they were out of the lab, the shadowy wall wouldn’t be the only thing missing.

He didn’t say anything. He covered his mouth with his hand and shook, silently, as Demencia bent down to pick him up into her arms, careful to not jostle him and the emergency lights in the lab hummed to life, and 5.0.5 cried.

That poor bear had always been afraid of the dark.  
~*~  
The heroes were dead within minutes. Every strike they delivered to him were, of course, impactful; some even made Black Hat stagger. Angela hovered around them from above, seeming akin to that of a rather annoying bee. She stung him time and again with her righteousness-tipped arrows, her wings flitting her through the air, and she only winced whenever another one of her warriors fell.

Blood stained the grand hall as far as the eye could see. Twenty feet above Black Hat, Angela darted around his lashing tentacles and swiping claws. 

He was losing energy. Angela hardly seemed affected. If anything, she was a bit red in the face from the exertion, but other than that, she seemed almost happy.

Well, her soldiers were dead, but they were weak. After all, she only wanted the best of the best.

He knew that his time was quickly arriving. Angela seemed to sense it too.

Black Hat drew back, circling underneath Angela in irritation, his chest heaving and eyes focused on the woman above. Angela panted, her own eyes gleaming. 

“I was sent to earth for one purpose: destroying evil and, thus, what it stood for. If you are not the devil himself, then you must be closely related.” She reached behind herself to pluck out yet another arrow—what an endless supply, almost otherworldly!—and inspected it with a look of boredom. 

“ _We have worked together previously, yes_.” He hurled a chair at her, and she darted away from it as easily as if he had thrown merely a pebble her way.

She tittered, covering her mouth in a ladylike manner. “Almost a shame I have to kill you. We need a little more humor from villains when we’re killing them, aside from the pleads for their lives or their insolent persistence.” She drew the arrow, and Black Hat found that he was too sluggish to dive out of the way. The arrow found a home in one of the many eye sockets covering his body, and Black Hat roared. The lights dimmed. Blackish blood wept from the area.

As Black Hat staggered on his feet, tentacles lashing to rip the arrow out, Angela drifted to flutter down on top of the balcony. Light from the dying day drifted in to outline Angela’s body. “It’s okay to give in. I suppose even a foul creature like you deserves a certain mercy.” She tapped her index finger against her cheek. “Give up, Black Hat, and I’ll grant you a less painful death. Your employees may be given the same.”

Anger surged through him. “ _You will not touch them, you evil woman_ ,” he snarled. Black Hat bared his teeth, weaving back and forth on the floor beneath her. He was stalling for time, hoping to perhaps heal and overtake her when she least expected it.

“Mm. No.” He cried out, back bowing violently, as two arrows pierced him, one in another eye and the other buried deep in a mouth. From those areas, a burning warmth began to spread. His vision doubled, and he swayed on his feet, struggling to keep his attention on Angela. Those had been poisoned, then. His healing factor was compromised as it was. He was running out of willpower, the need to keep going instead of lying down on the floor and giving up.

“You could’ve just helped your employees out by giving yourself up. But no. For your own selfish reasons—“ 

“ _No_ ,” he rasped out, but deep down, he knew she was right. She was right and she _knew_ she was right and everything hurt and Flug and Demencia and that godforsaken bear were going to die—

“—because you, what, want to prove you’re tough? That you’re gonna win?” Another arrow. He buckled, the back half of his monstrous form falling to the floor. “That you’re the big bad villain that everyone was afraid of and should still _be_ afraid of? What a hateful way to live, and what a terrible way to die, and your employees—“

were going to die because of him he was going to die and that would be the end of him of Black Hat the end all done all finished and he was sorry, so so sorry, fuck everything hurt and now they—

“—are gonna meet up with you to burn in hell for everything you all have ever done, and you know what they’re gonna say? You know what they’re gonna say, Black Hat, when they finally see you again for eternal suffering?” Her voice had taken on a honeyed tone, like one would use when speaking to a child. “They’re not gonna be thankful for a single darn thing you did for them. Not. A. Single. _Thing_. But you never really did it for them, did you? It was always for yourself, for your benefit, and—“

Through the dizzying, nauseating pain, as more and more arrows assaulted his body, sticking out like spines from a porcupine, as his eyes started to slide shut, there was an image.

An image of Flug making pancakes on a late Saturday morning, piling them high and serving them with raspberry jam (Black Hat’s favorite way to eat them—the jam looked like blood, he claimed, but it honestly tasted delicious), with whipped cream and chocolate syrup (Demencia’s favorite), with butter and maple syrup (Flug’s own), with honey (5.0.5’s). Clad in his paper airplane pajamas, he had been humming some cheesy song underneath his breath that happened to play over the radio that crackled in the corner of the kitchen as he cooked. Black Hat sat at the table, newspaper crinkling, not even complaining about Flug’s awful humming (it honestly wasn’t bad, as far as humming went). Demencia perched on the refrigerator, reaching down to snatch a pancake once in a while and Flug scolding her for it. The bear curled up in the corner, letting out a quiet _bwar_ of assent once in a while.

It faded.

The next one was replaced by that of Demencia chasing Flug through the house with her awful Black Hat costume on, 5.0.5 following behind, as they played—more like Demencia tormenting Flug under the guise of a game—a game she had dubbed “Black Hat Tag”. That time, Black Hat had given Demencia a stern talking to before he joined in. The trio chased Flug around the mansion, and soon, the manor was filled with hoops and hollers, laughter (from Flug, even!) slotting itself into any empty spaces.

Another one. Flug’s fingers brushing across his, Black Hat’s face tucked into the scientist’s neck, saying nothing.

Another one. Demencia curled into his side, fast asleep, letting out quiet whines in her slumber.

Another one. Flug and Demencia using a laser pointer to play with 5.0.5.

Another one. Another one. Another one. Memories of them all together slipped through his mind like a stream, delivering and taking them away as fast as he could manage to understand them.

“—and now you’re giving up because I said I was going to kill your employees?” Angela’s risen voice cut through his thoughts, and he lifted his head to glare up at her. Her wings were stretched, and the light seemed brighter, then, wrapping itself around Angela and making her seething all the more prevalent. “Newsflash, I was going to kill them _from the beginning_. The world is going to be better.”

“ _You’re wrong_.” His voice was tinny, and he wasn’t sure what mouth had said it, but the words were echoed in whispers, hundreds of languages filling the air like a song. “ _They’re going to thank me in hell. But not today. And they’re going to thank me for maybe only one thing_ ,” Black Hat’s voice warbled out. “ _You’re not going to touch them_.” Black Hat, trembling, rose to his feet once more. Darkness was beginning to swirl around him, a last resort, a final burst. Angela spluttered in surprise, but her wings swept her into the air, and the tip of an arrow, this one black and glittering gold at the tip, centered on him. The light was growing stronger, but the shadows amassing around Black Hat were filling the other half of the room, rushing forward like an unending ocean.

“By the power vested in me, I rid you of this earth forever, demon! Do your bidding elsewhere, and leave this planet alone!” Angela cried, and she drew her wings in to dive at him. The light grew around her, streaming behind her.

“ _Haunting you would be an honor_.” Then Black Hat bellowed, shaking the house and causing the lights in the house to begin to pop, and he leapt towards her, mouth wide and filled to the brim with razor sharp teeth, his claws exposed, every inch of him posed to kill her. The shadows melted into her light, and they seemed to fight for dominance.

Black Hat thought of Flug, of Demencia, of 5.0.5, and he felt at peace. They were going to survive. They were going to be okay. They were going to go off and have their lives and maybe start families, and it was then that there was a small, gentle warmth that filled his chest. It eased him in his last moments before death. 

He loved them. He hoped they would finally be happy.

The angel and the demon collided.

There was an explosion, intense white, then darkness.

Then nothing.

Nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)c


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alan: bh is a heartless monster and cares not at all for his employees  
> me, completely disregarding canon: ahaha, anyways,  
> ...no, but really.  
> well, here it is everyone. the last chapter. it’s been a trip writing this: a lot of ups and downs, a lot of in betweens. thank you so much for being patient with me and reading my fic. i set this up to be a little open ended for a brief sequel if there’s enough clamor for one, or i might just write it just because i can. idk yet. i can never tell you all how much the kudos and comments mean to me. it’s amazing how much you all care about this fic that i have dubbed my baby. you’re all spectacular. thank you. happy holidays.

There was nothing. Then, there was everything.

Stars bursting into existence and imploding into black holes. The entirety of the human race building up and collapsing. The earth forming and crumbling.

He was swimming in the stream of the universe. He was drowning.

A hand reached out, grasped at nothingness, and fell back.

The moment passed in a blink of an eye.

What’s a moment to all of time, anyhow?  
~*~  
They had been pushing against the door for nearly an hour. It hadn’t budged.

Despite the fact that the door was so damn hot—it signaled that there was fire somewhere outside of the lab and somewhere close—they had done all that they could think of for getting the door to open. Nothing had worked.

Flug had been set down to rest on the floor (thankfully with a fresh bag to help alleviate some of his crushing anxiety), and as he cradled his side, wincing with every breath, he watched Demencia hit the door with her shoulder as she turned the handle of the door. 

“God _fucking_ —“ She let out a stream of profanities, and she kicked the door. Flug rolled his eyes.

“Cursing at it won’t solve the problem, Dem.”

“Yeah? Well, it made me feel better.” She turned to him and scowled, crossing her arms. The skin that had touched the door was red, slightly burnt from the heat, but it was quickly fading. “And if _you_ want to help, by all means, come here.”

“I have injuries.”

“Welcome to the club.”

5.0.5 let out a disapproving _brawr_ and butted his head against Demencia. The lizard girl turned her head away from Flug to reach up and pet 5.0.5. There was a brief pause. “I’m...I’m sorry, Flug. But I’ve tried everything. _We’ve_ tried everything. The vents are crushed, and I think something is blocking the door. I don’t think—“ Her voice hitched, and Flug could tell she was nearing tears again, “I don’t think we’re gonna make it out.”

Flug looked away; after a bit of effort on his part, he got to his feet, hissing in pain. Demencia took in a sharp breath, probably to voice her disapproval of him moving, but he interrupted with, “We haven’t tried everything.” 

Slowly, step by step, the scientist made his way to the other two, and he motioned Demencia out of the way to place his hands against the door. The heat scorched him. He didn’t move. “Come on. On three.”

Realization dawned on Demencia’s face. “Flug, are you sure you can—“

“One,” He warbled out.

Demencia muttered something about Flug being the smartest stupid person she knew before placing one hand on the door and the other on the handle. 5.0.5, on the opposite side of Flug, put his paws on the door.

“Two.” His palms screamed at him, and the pain in his ribs scraped at his sides, causing his breath to shorten further.

He felt Demencia tense beside him. 5.0.5 whined worriedly.

“Three.”

He pushed. 5.0.5 shoved. Demencia budged her shoulder against the door and turned down on the handle. The pain increased tenfold, and Flug’s vision cut out momentarily, dizziness filling his head.

He stumbled forward. Demencia caught him. The smell of smoke and something richer (blood?) filtered into the room.

He looked up. His mouth dropped.

The door had opened, the thing that had been blocking it crumbling to ash, but by the looks of what happened, Flug almost wished that the door had stayed put. 5.0.5 let out a fearful sob.

Demencia summed up the scene in front of them pretty well.

“Holy _shit_.”  
~*~  
Eldritches didn’t have souls. They didn’t have any faiths, they didn’t believe in greater powers, and they certainly didn’t prepare for a life after death.

Eldritches were nigh immortal. Those lucky few who had managed to kill an eldritch over the millions of years that humans existed were assisted with alien technologies. The eldritch that had been killed simply disappeared from existence, as if it had never existed. Its presence left the history books, left the minds of the people it encountered, left even the stories that had been fabricated after its existence. It was gone, physically and abstractly.

Eldritches weren’t born. They just...showed up. They stayed at the back of everyone’s minds. They were the shadows you saw out of the corner of your eye, they were the monsters under your bed, they were the scratches on your windows, they were your worst nightmares and then some.

And yet.

And yet, some held compassion to some capacity for others. Granted, this was rare, but it did happen. They made sacrifices for those they cared about. They weren’t heroes by any means, of course, but do understand that some eldritches cared.

That often led to their downfalls and their deaths.

One young eldritch scoffed at this, pledging that he’d never be that stupid as to bare his very soul to another being, let alone an anxious scientist, a lizard-woman hybrid, and a blue bear. He wouldn’t be caught with weaknesses. He was going to conquer the world and kill anyone who dared to oppose him. He’d be ruthless! He’d be unstoppable! He was going to be feared across planets! He’d learn from his ancestors’ mistakes and rectify them; he wasn’t an idiot. 

He deemed himself impossible to defeat from the beginning. Caring about others? Compassion for his employees? Please. He’d rather eat a bowl full of rusty nails.

But you see how that turned out.

Didn’t you?  
~*~  
Everything was in ruins.

The manor had collapsed in some places, burnt away in others, completely blown out in one section. The only part of the mansion that was left intact was the lab.

Flug swayed against Demencia. “What the hell...”

He could see the bodies littering the front lawn, and there were some corpses trapped under debris. Others had been ripped apart, as if a wild animal had gotten ahold of them. The stench of the beginnings of decay hit Flug, and he gagged, a hand clapped over his bag to keep himself from vomiting.

There was a wide halo of area that had been left practically untouched, the floor looking as if it had just been cleaned that day. No crumbles of plaster, no cracks, not even a speck of dust seemed to dare enter that circle. Outside of the circumference, it was another story entirely.

Only two objects laid inside of the area: a body laying prone on its back and a small round shard of glass.

“Flug...I...” Demencia’s voice failed her. 5.0.5 was still crying, and his paws covered his eyes. 

“Take me there.” He lifted his hand from his bag to point, shakily, at the bareness that was alien to its surroundings.

“Flug, you moron, what if it’s—“

“Not safe?” He demanded. “Not stable? Damn it, Demencia, everything we’ve known and lived with is _gone_. Do you understand? We have each other, and that’s _it_. Everything is gone, and I—“ He paused, dropping his face to rest against Demencia’s shoulder. “Please, Dem. I...I have to know whose body that is,” he croaked.

And, step by step, she took him towards that circle of purity, hardly stained by the massacre that enveloped it. The bear trailed behind, his tears splashing onto the debris underneath him, but he didn’t dare enter where Demencia and Flug were going.

Demencia knelt beside the body, and she carefully maneuvered Flug (without jostling him too much) to kneel as well so he could inspect the body. They both knew, instantly, whose soul had once inhabited the body.

“She’s perfect. Even dead.” Demencia’s voice was flat. 

Flug said nothing. Reaching forward, he brushed a golden lock out of the woman’s face, and he inspected her idly. 

Demencia was right. She _was_ perfect. He had once read about people who had supposedly been perfectly preserved after death due to godly intervention, their bodies on display for all to see and believe. What a prime example. The stench of death didn’t even haunt her. All that betrayed her status as a corpse was a stream of blood that had traced down her chin from the corner of her mouth and her unseeing eyes, cloudy but as blue as a churning sea. Her hands were even resting lightly by her sides, daintily poised, and her wings, while the very tips of the feathers were charred, hardly looked rustled.

Flug could appreciate how beautiful Angela had been during life—hell, even death—but he didn’t feel bad for seeing her dead. In fact...

“Good riddance,” he murmured, and he reached up to close her eyes.

Demencia helped him up, and he limped over to the other object in the circle, opposite of Angela’s body. When he saw it, the reality of what all had happened hit him, hit Demencia, hit 5.0.5, like a brick.

Grief welled inside of Flug, and he slipped from Demencia’s grasp to fall to his knees, staring down at the object with wide eyes. Demencia let out a cry, stricken with agony.

It was Black Hat’s monocle, and there wasn’t a single scratch on it.

He was gone.   
~*~  
Eldritches had one physical connection to the dimension they chose to reside in. It had to be an object that they could wear at all times, otherwise their bodies would weave between dimensions at the speed of light, and that would just get irritating.

When they were injured, they would retreat into a safe place to nurse themselves back to health, gathering their power back through their physical connection.

If they happened to be gravely injured, all that would be left of them was their connection, and that connection would end up as just another commodity, jumping from the hands of owner to owner, nestling in the backs of thrift shops to gather dust and rust away.

Just like the memory of the eldritch itself.  
~*~  
“He can’t be dead.”

Demencia, through her tears, saw Flug cradling the monocle in his hands, and he looked up to stare at her blankly. “He can’t be dead,” he repeated, “because he can’t die.”

Her heart sank. As much as she wanted to believe that Black Hat was still alive, she knew the truth. “Flug,” she started softly, “it’s okay to be upset.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“Why would he leave his monocle behind? That’s like him leaving his hats behind.” A slightly crazed titter left him. Demencia swallowed hard.

“We need to clean up. As...as best as we can, okay?”

Flug blinked. “I mean, we _could_ just wait for Black Hat to get back, he’d have this cleaned up in two seconds flat.” 

Demencia stepped towards Flug, and she dropped to squat beside the scientist. Her hand caressed his shoulder comfortingly. Behind her, 5.0.5 came bustling over, sensing Flug’s distress. “Flug, he’s not coming back.”

Flug rolled his eyes. “Don’t be dense. Of _course_ he is,” he replied. 

God, this hurt too much. “Flug,” she sighed, “oh, Flug.” 

And she wrapped him in her arms, and he wept, his form crumpling into her, and the bear snuggled against the two, and the trio cried.

They cried into one another. Their sorrow was endless. 

What else were they to do?  
~*~  
It alternated between black and white.

Blinding waves of white and suffocating smears of black.

Why did everything hurt? Existence meant suffering. Giving up sounded much easier. What was the point? Pain would be ended if it all stopped. 

It sounded like a wonderful idea.

Fingers scraped at the bottom of the universe, desperate to be freed. But there was no bottom, no top. Only...there. Being in the moment. 

The fingers stopped. What was a scratch to eternity embodied? It was like the brush of a feather against a tree trunk: harmless, barely noticed.

_Give up give up give up give up_.

There was a flash of color, of bright greens and reds, of soft baby blues, of darker hues of blue. An airplane cracking against a background of yellow.

A manic smile. A crinkly bag. A soft creature.

And, out of the nothingness, out of everything, there was a ripple of anger, a ripple of a desire to continue.

A voice, to answer to the feeling of releasing and ceasing:

_NO_.

An eye opened, and the murkiness shivered away. A strangled cry.

Again, nothingness. 

But something had happened.

Something that had never happened before. It confused the universe.

But the universe wasn’t about to stop it from happening.  
~*~  
Demencia was still petting Flug’s back when something struck him. He looked up and gazed around bleakly at the destruction. “Demencia.”

“Yeah?” He could feel her shifting to look at him.

“What are we going to do with the bodies?”

“Well, I—“

“Send the villains’ bodies home to their families. Burn the heroes’ bodies.” He interrupted her, emotionless. 

“What about the heroes who helped us? Or the villains who went against us?”

“I don’t give a shit about them.” He turned his head and buried his face in her chest. “They’re all the same to me.”

He wanted nothing more than to just let go. What were they going to do with the company? What were they going to do without their jobs? Without a home? Without Black Hat?

Flug wished that he could turn his mind off. But the thoughts stayed, swimming around and taunting him.

Demencia must’ve known how he felt, for she leant down, pressed a soft kiss to the top of Flug’s bag, and held him tighter.

It was almost daybreak by the time they began to collect bodies and move rubble. Flug had placed Black Hat’s monocle back where he had found it, not wishing to disturb it any further, feeling as if he had desecrated the site. He was glad for the work, as it distracted him from his overwhelming sadness. He was sure that the other two were as well.

The scientist knew that it’d only be a matter of time before the general public found out about the demise of Black Hat. He hoped that villains would, at the very least, have the decency to refrain from attempting to rob them.

Hands and paws were dusty and bloody by the afternoon, and the scent of sweat overcame the smell of death. Hastily constructed pyres were lit in the yards. The bodies of heroes were burned. The bodies of villains were arranged to be sent off to their families. 

Flug personally saw to Angela’s pyre. He watched, dispassionate, as her body slowly turned to ash. He and Demencia had come to a joint decision that the ashes of the heroes would be sent to their loved ones. 

They, at the very least, could offer that. The heroes had fought hard, despite what they had fought for.

Small mercies. None of which seemed to bless the trio.  
~*~  
How terrible it was, to exist with no purpose.

At least, that was what it felt like.

Eternities passed by in the span of seconds. The blink of an eye, and three thousand years had passed.

Or perhaps it was only minutes.

Time didn’t matter to the universe.

Eldritches, children of her ever developing womb, didn’t care much for time, either. Why should they? Time was folly to them.

One particular being cared, though.

He cared too much for an eldritch.

He curled up on himself, pain shuddering through his body, and counted down the picoseconds to when his consciousness would break momentarily, offering him a touch of solace. 

The cloudy haze of unconsciousness settled over him.

He slept.  
~*~  
The trio had come to find out that during Angela and Black Hat’s battle, the resulting surge of power caused an outage of electricity across the city.

Flug had stored a backup generator in his lab. Since they only needed to power the lab, it didn’t take much for the generator to run.

In between their cleaning up, they began to notice that families were starting to move back in. The families gawked at the destruction that had been ravaged upon the mansion. Some even celebrated. It meant the end of the reign of terror Black Hat and his cronies had upon the city, surely.

Ashes were collected. Bodies were gathered. Flug, Demencia, and 5.0.5 didn’t come out to give their condolences or chase away trespassers. They stayed in the shadows, watching warily, and eventually, the wanderers left.

The debris was slowly beginning to clear up.

They left Black Hat’s monocle in the spot it had been found, afraid of tampering with it. It was the one thing left of their boss that was a physical reminder that he had actually existed.

There was a radio that Flug had bought, long ago, during his days as a pilot. As the power began to be restored to the city, the news stations clamored about the demise of Black Hat and his terrifying mansion.

Not a peep from Black Hat or his minions for days, they all said. It was unusual, but perhaps he was just planning another one of his awful escapades. 

They listened to the villain news as well, one that had been hidden well from the general public on a radio wave that could only be accessed using a special sort of antenna. 

The villains were wondering where their idol was. Black Hat was gone. Where was he? He had never been MIA for so long.

One particular night, the trio was huddled around the radio. Demencia and Flug were bundled under a blanket, 5.0.5 nuzzling against them both. 

“—news of a bridge collapsing, although there’s no proof that it was due to malicious means. It had been built in 1901, and several attempts to restore it had been made, although with no success. There were no casualties—“

“Ugh.” Demencia rolled her eyes. “Don’t they have anything _else_ to talk about? God.”

Flug smiled slightly but said nothing. Wordlessly, he reached out, turned a dial, and pushed a button. Villain news was always more interesting, anyways.

“Thank you, Luci, for that thrilling report on the fire department’s delightfully unfortunate fire.” Demencia laughed, and Flug joined her briefly. “We all needed something to smile about.

“Now, there’s been no news on the whereabouts of Black Hat for days now. It’s been almost two weeks, and yet, he’s not shown hide nor hair. Same goes for his employees: Doctor Flug Slys—“

“Thank god that they remembered I have a doctorate,” he muttered. Demencia giggled some more at that.

“—Demencia, and 5.0.5. His mansion has been demolished. The last eyewitness reports we have received claimed that Black Hat had been battling with the mayor, Angela Angel, although we can’t be too sure of how accurate this is. The mayor has also been identified as missing. We shouldn’t lose hope, though. The villains’ bar may be gone—“

“ _Damn_ it. I loved happy hour there. I’d fight anyone there just to get free drinks,” Demencia sighed wistfully.

“—but our ways of sharing information are not. Pleasant nightmares, everyone, and be revolting.”

The radio cut into static. It filled the heavy air, weighed with sentences unsaid.

Then, finally, Flug spoke. “Angela’s arrows...where I had found them...they had been in the bodies of villains. Specifically ones that had been on her side. The bodies that had been ripped up were heroes. There were...there were some heroes that had been shot by her, too.” He stared down at his hands. “She never cared about villains or their sympathizers.”

“Well, duh. I knew she was trouble as soon as she was mayor.” Demencia laid her head on his shoulder. “But why do you bring that up?”

Flug shut his eyes. “It’s just unfortunate that so many people believed her.”

Demencia wrapped her arms around him, and they fell silent again.  
~*~  
“Wake up.”

_No_.

“I said...”

A sharp, stinging slap burned like a brand. An eye shot open next to an empty eye socket. 

“ _Wake. Up._ ” 

He snarled. “You aren’t _dead yet_?” He spat, and he surged forward to scalp her when he realized two things.

One, he couldn’t move. He was suspended in the air, naked as the day he was created, arms above his head and legs hanging beneath him.

Two, the woman that was dead— _should have been_ dead—was standing in front of him. Her smile was thin, impatient. 

“Oh, darling,” she sighed, “darling, darling, darling. You have _much_ to learn about the universe, don’t you? Well, you’re still a young one—naive, certainly, and even a touch over-egotistical for an eldritch—with much to learn.”

Somehow, his scowl deepened. “If I’m dead with you for company, I’ll commit suicide and die _again_. Permanently. None of this resurrection bullshit.”

The woman only tittered in response. “Oh, hush it, you. Always know how to flatter a lady, hm?” She tilted her head, a golden lock slipping off of her shoulder to hang neatly by her face. It swayed with her breath. “No, no. You’re not dead. Merely in a—“ She rotated her hand in the air, searching for an appropriate word. “—a limbo, of sorts. But do you know what I am?” 

“A demon that Lucifer himself would grow jealous of.”

She tsked. “Ah, ah. None of that.” She stepped towards him, her smile widening. “I’m part of you,” she whispered, and the being reared back in disgust.

“Don’t,” he warned.

“But it’s true! I’m your consciousness! I’m dead, you can be certain of that, and I won’t cause any more trouble on Earth’s realm, but you know where I’m going to haunt for the rest of your miserable days? Even if—that’s a big _if_ —you happen to gather enough strength to get back to your lovers?”

“They’re not my lovers,” he growled, and he cursed himself for how he hesitated. 

“There’s no need to be ashamed. Well, _I’m_ disgusted, but my opinion means nothing to you. Anyways.” She straightened up and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. Her wings fluttered behind her. “I’ll be with you. In your mind. Chasing you around, scraping at your insides, until your existence is no longer.”

The being arranged his face into one of passiveness. “I can ignore you,” he responded mildly.

She covered her mouth and giggled lightly. “Oh, I knew you’d say something like that,” she cooed, “but can you ignore the rest of the innocent sounds you’ve damned?”

The being opened his mouth, but it snapped shut as a bloodcurdling scream erupted from beneath them. He looked down.

Thousands of faces, morphing, joining together and splitting, gagging on their own saliva and tears and blood, gazed up at him in horror. They pleaded for their lives; their hands reached for him, desperate, but they were pulled away by an invisible force. Above them all, the being and the woman hovered.

Wailing and begging clawed at his mind, rolling around and filling his mind until he could think of nothing. There was only the suffering he had pressed upon others for the thousands of years he had been alive. Some of the faces he recognized from the recent battle; others were from civilizations that had long since crumbled. 

The woman watched him. Her prim smile was still on her face, dimpling her cheeks. “For the rest of your days,” she said cheerfully above the din, “this will be what you must live with. An eye for an eye, a mind for thousands of individuals killed.” She raised her hand, and silence was granted to them once more. The faces were gone. “And do you know why you are not _actually_ dead yet?” She asked softly.

The being swallowed hard. He opened his mouth, could think of nothing to say, and closed his mouth again. 

“It is because there are still ones on Earth who believe in you. That you aren’t dead, merely missing, and—well, in a way, they’re right. It depends on what they do from here on, whether you live and go back to suffer on Earth or die here like a coward.” 

She walked towards him and took his chin in a firm grip. He growled at her in warning. “Your true name...it hasn’t been spoken for many millennia. That was why you wore the hat, yes?” Not waiting for an answer, she continued. “But you’re nothing now. Your hat, your namesake, is gone.” She leant in, and her voice was saccharine. “You are laid bare to me like a lover. You’re not so foreign to that, though, are you?”

And his name, his true name, slipped from her lips, and his world was suddenly alit with pain, his back arching as he cried out hoarsely. 

“You must remember that you cannot be rid of me. I’m part of you now.” The screaming started again. The being felt as if his mind was being split in two with an axe. “And so are these poor, poor souls. You must live with your guilt or die from it.”

“I don’t feel guilty for what I did,” he gasped out.

He missed her smile wavering. He picked his head up, and she had joined the crowd of souls now lumbering towards him, sorrow and excruciating existence etched onto their features. Her face was peeling from her skull, leaving behind another more sinister grin. “Then if you will not feel guilt, I will make feel suffering,” she murmured.

The crowd of souls overtook him. Another flare of pain, then everything was gone.  
~*~  
A month passed. The mansion, once standing proudly and evilly, and its remains were gradually cleaned up, swept away, and carried off. The lab became what was left of the house that was livable, and the trio thrived from it. As best as they could, anyways. 

It wasn’t bad. In fact, all things considering, it could’ve been much worse. They had a warm place to sleep, food to eat, and showers to take (the chemical shower in Flug’s lab always had amazing water pressure; despite that, it took coercing Demencia into the little cubicle to make her shower).

Black Hat’s monocle had been moved to a corner in the lab onto a small table. It was the elephant in the room, all the time.

But they ignored it. They talked around it, edged around it, and it felt like a bomb ticking off the seconds to annihilation. Yet nothing happened.

The mourning from villains across the city started to come in. Despite the villains’ news station’s efforts to keep hopes up about Black Hat, he had never been gone for so long, and the trio had kept to themselves since the incident. Many assumed that they were alive but in hiding. Not Black Hat, though. He was too much of a drama king to keep himself concealed and away from the public eye for so long.

Villains assumed the worst.

Not too long after a month had passed of Black Hat’s disappearance, a small shrine dedicated to Black Hat started to build at the front gate. Pictures of him, bundles of flowers mixed with Venus fly traps, and various discontinued weapons that had been sold by Black Hat, Inc. adorned a small portion of the sidewalk. 

Demencia witnessed a teenage girl surveying the small gathering of gifts. Slowly, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a feather, tucked it against one of the pictures of Black Hat, and walked off, her hands stuffing her pockets.

Intrigued, Demencia had crept from the shadows to follow her. She looked familiar.

When she recalled this to Flug, her face had taken a slightly softer look. “That girl you saved, Flug...the one who came in to scratch Merlot’s eyes...that was her.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“I mean, yeah, I did. I scared her pretty good, but she recognized me, too. She said that she knew that we were alive and doubted what everyone had started saying, about us being dead, too. She promised to keep it a secret, though.”

“And teenagers are so good about keeping secrets, right?”

Demencia rolled her eyes at Flug. “Oh, please. Miss me with that shit, Flugbug. Anyways, she asked me if Black Hat was alive, too.”

She hated the way Flug tensed at that. Her stomach clenched. “What did you say?” He asked softly.

“I told her that...that we weren’t sure. That there was a chance that he was still alive, but...yeah. That’s...that’s all I told her. And I told her that Angela was dead. Believe it or not, she smiled about that.” She dropped a wad of bills into Flug’s lap. “And no, I didn’t rob Peregrine. She gave this to us. Told me that she hoped it’d help us out some.” She smiled slightly. “Oh, and she wants us to give her a tour of the mansion sometime after it’s rebuilt.”

A weak laugh was shared between the two. They both knew now that that probably wasn’t feasible. 

“You know that she wanted to build a rehab center for villains who didn’t want to be villains anymore, and Angela shot her down on the spot?”

“Really?” Demencia saw Flug stuff the bills into his pocket then turned to raise his brows at Demencia. “I mean, good for her for wanting to help others, but I think she was a little misguided in her efforts.”

Demencia stood, stretched, and wandered over to a sleeping 5.0.5. She clambered on top of the bear and lounged on top of him as if he were a sofa. “It’s worked before on some villains. Who knows, maybe something like that could help me reach my dream of being a veterinarian,” she sighed wistfully.

Flug let out a laugh and went to join Demencia, except he decided to sit on the floor and lean against 5.0.5’s stomach. She noticed that he had healed well and was hardly limping. “You’ve never said that before. Favorite animal?”

Demencia hesitated. “I fucking _love_ dogs,” she mumbled.

A surprised sound left Flug. “Dogs, huh? I would’ve expected lizards.”

“That’s my theme, asshole, not what I like. God. Let me guess, your favorite piece of machinery is a plane.”

“Yep.”

Demencia blinked, groaned, and threw an arm over her eyes. “Alright, fair enough. What did you want to be, yknow, before you became a villain and all?”

Flug hummed thoughtfully. He didn’t respond for a minute or so. “A pilot,” he finally said. “I got my piloting license, goggles, schooling, even my own plane... _everything_. And then Black Hat kind of...happened.”

Another story for another time, Demencia supposed. She’d ask later, if neither of them could sleep.

“We could, you know.” She rolled onto her side and stared down at Flug. His eyes were shut. 

“Hm?”

“Try to live a normal life. Move out of the country, change our names, buy a house, settle down. I mean, without Black Hat, we, uh, don’t really have a chance at starting the business back up. The mansion went to shit. Everyone thinks that Black Hat is gone for good, and you can’t really do much with what we have right now for materials.” It was surprising Demencia, how fast it was starting to flow from her. “We can dye fives’s fur brown and make him look like he’s just a regular, harmless bear that likes to follow us around.”

Demencia was certain that Flug had fallen asleep until he shifted and sighed lowly. “Dem, you know we can’t.”

“Why not?” She demanded.

“That’s just...I don’t know. Unrealistic. People know our names and faces across the world. We’re safe here, but out there, we’d be screwed. I just...” He buried his face in his hands, and he took in a shuddering breath. “A month.”

“What?”

“I’ll...I’ll give us a month. We can...get together what we need to, and I’ll try to find us a plane to fly out somewhere where the population is sparse. If you really want to.”

Demencia felt a grin split her features. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be cool.”

Something pained her, though, about finally leaving. She didn’t know if Black Hat was dead or just hiding. She missed him so, and Flug did as well. 5.0.5 did sort of, too, although his mood mostly matched Flug’s. 

She wasn’t going to give up hope. 

Black Hat couldn’t be dead. A month was enough time.

Right?  
~*~  
Over and over, the suffering of so many were played back to back. 

The being shifted between stages of rage and pity, fear and hope, sleep and wakefulness. He was woozy; he was tired; he was in pain.

The images of those who had died by his hand, either directly or indirectly, spat at his consciousness and laughed at his despair. They indeed haunted him, and sometimes, the woman would come slinking back to laugh at his misfortune.

And then. 

And then something happened.

He fell to his knees, gazing down at a puddle of mercury. It shifted, blinking first to his reflection then to his first domination of a planet and then to his first meeting with an anxious, bag-wearing scientist.

The lizard woman was next.

Then that blasted bear.

And he heard voices, too. Not screaming. Not begging. Genuine conversation, although it sounded like it was coming from underwater.

His hands were free. He had been freed, momentarily, and he dipped his fingers into the puddle.

His mind was filled with a scene.

The lizard woman was sweeping next to him. The scientist was packing items into boxes. The bear was curled up on a large dog bed, fast asleep. He turned to the woman, his eye wide.

Everything looked so... _normal_. Maybe he hadn’t done as much damage to the mansion as he had once thought. He recognized the room he was in as the lab.

The woman paused in her sweeping, leant against the broom, and said something, her voice sweet but muffled. The scientist laughed at what she had said, gave her a shake of his head, and continued to box up items.

She neared where he was standing. Her name was one the tip of his tongue. Denise...Delilah...no, too normal, didn’t fit her lizard hood or her bright green hair...

“ _Demencia_.”

He reached out to brush his fingers against her arm, and everything shattered.  
~*~  
“Flug, you’re only boxing up because you don’t like to sweep.”

Flug looked up from the box he was currently clutching that was full of beakers and test tubes and laughed, shaking his head. She was right, he hated sweeping, but he wasn’t about to admit it. He was much more interested in safely packing away his beloved lab ware.

So whenever Demencia shrieked and dropped the broom, he cursed loudly as he fumbled with the box. He kept it from falling, put it on the counter, and turned in his chair to glare at Demencia. “Very funny. Why?” He snapped. He stopped at the genuine look of fear and anxiety on her face. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“ _Black Hat_ ,” she breathed, and Flug felt his heart skip a beat.

“Demencia—“

“Flug, he was here. He said my name. _He touched my arm_. Do you know what this means?” The excitement building on her face made Flug wince.

“Dem, please—“

“Black Hat is _still alive_ , we just have to find him. It’s gonna be okay, don’t you realize? We’re gonna be okay.” She laughed, her hands pressing against her cheeks, her eyes lighting up. 

“I think you’re just—“

“We can stay here and wait for him. He’s gonna be back soon. Flug, how awesome is that?”

“Demencia—“

“We’re going to see him again, and—“

“ _Demencia_. Black Hat is _dead_.” Oh, god, he never wanted to say the words aloud. None of them had spoken them. But there they were, thrown into the air to float like a paper plane made hastily that ended up flopping to the floor in a lump. “He’s dead, okay? And he’s not coming back.”

“But Flug, _I heard him_ —“

Flug stood up from his desk, shoving his chair backwards. “He and Angela killed each other in their fight,” he said flatly. The venom that was in his voice surprised them both, and it hurt him to see how much of Demencia’s energy had leaked away, seeing Flug so angry. “They’re both dead.” He looked away. “And I can’t deal with it any more.” He wavered. He hated how choked up he was getting.

Demencia took a step towards him, the sound echoing in the lab. “Flug, I didn’t mean to—“

“Leave. Please. Just...let me be alone for a while.” He was broken. He didn’t know what else to do.

Wordlessly, Demencia stared at him, then she hardened her expression and stormed towards the door. The door slammed shut behind her.

Flug stumbled towards 5.0.5, and he buried his face in his fur.

He cried.  
~*~  
No one was in the lab. It was dark, quiet, and dusty. 

The inhabitants were gathered at the middle of what was left of the mansion. The metal foundations stretched up towards the sky like fingers. Their things, what could be salvaged, had been gathered and packed. 

One thing remained that they had decided to leave behind, in honor of their boss.

It rested on the table it had been left on for the couple of months the trio had been preparing to leave. The monocle was polished. The table was dusted. Over the monocle rested a glass case, and should anyone ever decide to venture into the remains of the mansion and find the glass, they would be unable to move or shatter the glass. A small plaque, made carefully, was plastered to the table.

_In honor of the most terrible being to ever live and the best businessman and boss an employee could ask for. Thank you, Black Hat._

_We miss you._  
~*~  
Flug, Demencia, and 5.0.5 all stared at the remains of the mansion. Something had ended in order for something new to begin. Demencia reached for Flug’s hand. They clasped each other’s hand tightly.

“I’m not ready to go,” the girl admitted quietly.

“Me neither, Dem. Me neither.”

The bear let out a quiet sniffle, and he bent to nuzzle the two individually.   
~*~  
There was a bright light. Something fell to the floor, and there was a sharp tinkling of broken glass.

A deep inhale, claws scratching at linoleum.

An eye opened. A monocle gleamed.

The being sat up, looked down at his hands, and his physical form glitched, shimmered, and settled uneasily into a solid shape.

He touched the lapel of his jacket reverently, as if it’d disappear. It did not.

Newly reborn. From the ashes he rose, it seemed.

The being reached up, touched to see if a hat adorned his head, and let out a relieved sigh.

It hit him, then. It was much too silent. Much too lonely. His eye widened, and he stumbled to his feet, clutching his side. One painful step at a time, he limped towards the door.

Three names. Two humans. A bear.

_Flug Demencia 5.0.5 Flug Demencia 5.0.5 Flug Demencia 5.0.5 WHERE ARE YOU PLEASE—_

The door opened with a painful squeal of the hinges.

At the sight of demolition around him, he normally would’ve went ballistic. He ignored it, and instead, he continued forwards.

He swayed. His vision doubled, and he snarled. Absolutely ridiculous. What the hell was this? Ugh. He hated it.

He stopped. He heard voices. He continued forward cautiously, and after rounding a corner, he saw them.

He stood, wavering, face arranged into one of shock. They were there. Surrounded by boxes, they started to pick them up and move towards what used to be the front doors of the mansion. In the front yard was parked a small twin engine plane.

They were leaving. They had finally given up on him.

But they weren’t going to leave without him.

“And where do you think you’re going?” His words were harsh, yet they held no real malice to them. He hugged his sides, and a weak, genuine smile haunted his features.

And, one by one, they turned to face them. First disbelief, then anger, and finally, _finally_ , tearful happiness.

Slowly, the scientist set his boxes down and approached him. He stared at the being, looking neutral, and he whispered, “We thought you were gone.” 

He crushed the being in a hug, and his shoulders began to shake with quiet sobs. Next came the woman, haphazardly leaping over boxes to reach and wrap the other two in a hug, laughing and crying. The bear was last, lumbering over to lick at the being’s face and make happy _baw_ ing noises.

It wasn’t until later that the being realized that he had started to weep. He held the scientist and the woman tightly, his eye squeezed shut, and they fell to the ground, wrapped in each other’s embraces.

And thus went the reunion of Black Hat, Flug, Demencia, and 5.0.5 after months of pain and suffering on both ends.

He had been dead. 

Love had ultimately brought him back.  
~*~  
The mansion was rebuilt.

Black Hat was hailed as a hero among the villain community for his miraculous survival.

He recounted his battle with Angela time and again. Villains and some heroes rejoiced at his return. Others were pained by his refusal to die.

At his return, the hellhounds and ghosts that haunted the dusky corners of the mansion slowly trickled back in. Their appearance was welcomed, as they gave 5.0.5 some new playmates. 

Money began to be dumped on the group. Many around the world had been impressed by Black Hat’s ordeal. With this, Flug made and improved his weapons. Demencia messed with them. Black Hat sold them and gave large portions of the profit to his employees.

He spent many nights with Flug, Demencia, or sometimes both curled on either side of him, clutching to him tightly. The bear slept at the foot of the bed.

So, you see, now everything is finished. They are complete, together again. You may like to think of this as a happy ending, and it is, indeed, to some.

All was not well, though, for them.

Their own personal battles were just beginning.

But as long as they had each other, they would be all right.

The great war against Black Hat, Inc. had finally been drawn to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, also, follow me on tumblr! amygda1in.tumblr.com  
> don’t be afraid to say hello!!


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